


Drain the Whole Sea: An Alternate Season 3

by johannesburchard (transdimensional_void)



Category: Borgias - Ambiguous Fandom, The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Season/Series 03, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9230549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/johannesburchard
Summary: The pope has survived his poisoning, the Borgia family their assassination attempt, but the Vatican is a new, more dangerous place for them now. How they act now will determine the future of their family. (Or, Season 3 of The Borgias reimagined from Episode 2 onward)





	1. Episode 2: The Purge

**Author's Note:**

> After watching The Borgias several times, I found myself wishing so many things in Season 3 had played out differently. Here's my take on how the third season could have happened. I'll add more tags as the story progresses.

It was well before midday, early enough that the ascendant summer sun remained more hot than scorching. He squinted his eyes against its light, nevertheless, as he stepped out onto the wide, stone steps. The interior of the Apostolic Palace had been dim, and here outside, the day had dawned clear and cloudless.

It was morning. The sun had risen, and his family lived. At his side, his hand clenched into a fist — his sword hand. Someone must pay for this night’s doings. The bodies of the would-be assassins themselves had long gone cold, but his hands itched to squeeze themselves around the throat of the one who sent them, the mastermind of the plan, the woman he hated more than—

“My lord.”

The words were softly spoken but jolted him nevertheless. He glanced up to see Micheletto right where he ought to be: at his elbow, his faithful shadow.

“Yes?”

There were crowds around them now. He hadn’t heeded the path his feet took, but they must have already moved beyond the close-guarded precincts of the Vatican. Micheletto cast an eye about them and then leaned in closer.

“His Holiness lives,” he whispered in a low rasp.

Cesare only raised an eyebrow, as if to say _What of it?_

“Your sister—“ The assassin paused as though he considered his words for a moment. Cesare felt something in his chest contract.

“What about her?”

Though Micheletto already walked almost on top of him, somehow he managed to bend his head even nearer as they wended their way through the thick morning crowds of a street market.

“She saved his life,” the man said at last. Cesare felt a curl of impatience rise in his breast.

“Yes,” he agreed, the word short, clipped.

“She stopped the poison,” Micheletto elaborated, a courtesy he rarely paid anyone, even his master. After a pause, he added, “I wouldn’t have known to do that.”

“No?” Cesare hadn’t supposed he would have known, though now that he considered it, Micheletto knew more about poison than any man he’d ever met. “She said she read it in a book.”

“Ah,” Micheletto nodded, his expression remaining as impassive as ever. “I cannot read,” he said. “Perhaps if I could, I would have read that book too.”

Cesare’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt. He swallowed, staring at his manservant for a long moment.

“Perhaps you would have,” he said finally and then forged on, Micheletto following without a moment’s hesitation. They moved in silence through the city streets after that, until at last they gained the safety of his mother’s villa.

“Caterina Sforza can’t have acted alone,” he murmured to Micheletto, pausing in the shadow of a wall as soon as they were out of earshot of the guards. “There must be others, here in Rome — those who would conspire with her and act on her behalf.”

Micheletto simply inclined his head, the merest of acknowledgements.

“Go out into the city. Talk to whoever it is you talk to,” Cesare gritted out between clenched teeth. “Find out who is here that shouldn’t be here.”

“My lord,” the assassin replied, offering a quick bow before he turned on his heel and headed toward the front gates again.

When he had gone, Cesare made his slow way across the courtyard, towards his old bedchamber. He had much larger and lovelier apartments in the Vatican now, in his father’s ostentatious palace, but at a moment like this, exhausted from hours spent on a knife’s edge, restless yet with a drive to do something still, he thought that perhaps here, in the familiarity of his childhood home, he would be able to relax at last.

Except, when he had shrugged out of his clothes and laid himself on the narrow old bed, Micheletto’s words drifted into his mind again almost at once.

_Perhaps I would have read that book too._

“Lucrezia,” he sighed, running a hand over his eyes and trying not to picture her face. Last night, when he had flung open the door of the closet in his sister’s room, just upstairs from here, seen his mother pale with terror, knuckles clenched white around the hilt of a dagger, Lucrezia had been there, just as pale, with her hands wrapped around a baby rather than a weapon. But it had not been terror he had seen in her expression — fear, yes, and apprehension. And a certain watchfulness, as though she waited, not for her death but for…something.

He made a sound, half annoyance, half exhaustion. What thoughts were these? He needed sleep now, not speculation. He rolled onto his side, pulling a sheet over his body, and resolved to put it from his mind until later, when sleep had had a chance to restore his wits.

 

Later came that very evening. When he woke from his nap, Micheletto was there again, with some intriguing intelligence to share. They would be going out tonight, to see where Micheletto’s information led, but for now—

He found his sister in her quarters in the Apostolic Palace, dressing her son after giving him his bath. He was on the verge of asking where the child’s nursemaid had gone off to when he remembered. He shook the thought from his head. She had paid for her betrayal, and her entire family along with her. They would find a new nursemaid, one who was known to them. One they could trust.

“Brother!”

He drew his attention back to the scene before him to find that Lucrezia had turned, Giovanni, mostly dressed now, clutched tightly in her arms. She was smiling at him, her eyebrows raised in faint question.

“He looks almost like a boy now, rather than a baby,” Cesare said, coming to a halt near her and holding out his arms. She transferred the wriggling child to him at once.

“ _Pa_!” the child exclaimed at him, and Cesare couldn’t help grinning and leaning down to nuzzle the tiny nose. Since the baby’s christening, Lucrezia had taken to calling Cesare Giovanni’s _padrí_ , his godfather, when she spoke to her son, and within the past few days he’d started trying to mimic her. “ _Pa_!” he cried again, reaching up and tugging hard on a lock of his godfather’s hair.

“Ow,” Cesare muttered, still grinning, as he reached up and disentangled the small fingers from his hair.

“He’s more than a year old now,” Lucrezia observed, a belated response to his earlier comment. “He walks and speaks and—“ she grimaced, reaching out and pulling him from Cesare’s arms once more, “knows his godfather would keep him awake far past his bedtime.”

He didn’t argue with her, merely relinquished the child with a sheepish smile.

It took her a while to calm the child down, nearly a half hour of rocking him and speaking to him in soft, soothing tones, and even singing a little lullaby that Cesare half-remembered his mother singing to Lucrezia and Jofré long ago. He sat at the seat in the window and waited, content to watch her in the companionable silence that came so naturally to them.

When at long last Giovanni slept, she came to him and pulled him into her room, her hand clasped warm in his, and that too came very naturally.

“Can I pour you some wine, Brother?” she asked as they came to a stop in front of the credenza where a half-empty decanter and a pair of glasses stood.

“No,” he said, dropping her hand with reluctance. “I must leave soon.”

She let out a small breath of laughter, a sound less of humor than of resignation, and poured a single glass of wine.

“You saved our father’s life,” he said abruptly, his words making her pause with the edge of the glass pressed against the plump pink of her lower lip.

“I suppose I did,” she said after a moment and took a sip.

“How did you know to do that?” he asked, watching her expression closely. He didn’t need to hear her next words to sense the lie in them.

“It was just something I read,” she told him, drawing another, longer sip from her glass and then taking several steps back out into the center of the room, away from him.

“You asked me to teach you about poison once,” he pressed on, tracing her footsteps with his own and coming to a stop half a pace behind her. “I thought I’d convinced you that you didn’t need it.”

“Did you really?” There was a laugh in her voice. He couldn’t see her face, but he could imagine the sardonic tilt of her lips, her eyebrows. He opened his mouth to reply, but she turned and spoke again, meeting his eyes with a sharp gaze, “I didn’t need it, after all. Not then. You were right about that, at least.”

He felt as though for a moment ice water pumped through his veins rather than blood. He swallowed hard.

“I was right,” he echoed, his voice coming out deeper, rougher than he’d meant it to.

She softened at once. Her features, the line of her shoulders, the angle at which she held her neck, all relaxed into an expression of conciliation. As he watched, she stretched out an arm to set her wine glass on a low table and took a short step to close the space between them. A moment later, he felt her hands at his waist and saw her face tilt up to let her look into his eyes. Without him telling them to, his own hands rose to clasp the small of her back.

“I wish you hadn’t been,” she murmured, her eyes flitting back and forth, searching his. “It pains you, Cesare. It’s written in every line of your face. I wish you hadn’t taken upon yourself an act which I—“ She bit her lip for a moment, as though she weren’t sure she should set the words loose. He heard a pounding in his ears, and though she was right there in his arms, she suddenly felt very far away. “—which I would have committed without remorse,” she said at last, her eyes glittering up at him as though in challenge.

He shook his head, which felt at once too heavy and far too light. _No!_ he wanted to shout. _Never you! Not you!_ His lips parted, forming the words, but she forestalled them.

Stretching up on the very tips of her toes, she let her dark lashes flutter closed and pressed her warm lips against his slightly-parted ones. He felt her breath inside his mouth, could taste the wine on it, sweet and tangy. He held himself so still he hardly dared breathe.

Then she pulled away, dropping back down to her usual height, though she gazed up at him still.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I know…I know why you did it, and I…I thank you.”

She dropped her hands then, walked back over to retrieve her wine glass. They spoke a few more words, nothing significant. Words of parting. He told her good night. None of the rest of it much figured in his memory later that evening, as he and Micheletto slipped down dark alleyways, tailing the first of their intended targets. All he remembered was the way she had tasted, the way she had felt, the way her eyes had gleamed as she said _Thank you_.

He pushed it from his mind with great effort. There were other matters to attend to now, and it didn’t bear dwelling on in any case.

 

**

 

Giulia suppressed the urge to sigh and turn to face the wall. She had returned to her rightful place, she reminded herself, at the Holy Father’s side, in the Holy Father’s bed, and that was what mattered — not the way his bloodshot eyes had needled her from the moment she had set foot in the room. Not the way his words had stabbed at her, made sharp by suspicion.

 _Where were you?_ he’d demanded, the words flying from his mouth before she’d even had a chance to close the door behind her.

 _At the Palace Montegiordano_ , she had replied, holding her voice to its usual practiced calm, _writing letters urgently entreating—_

_Oh, spare us the details of your betrayal!_

She had let her eyes flare wide at that, as though in surprise. She had not been surprised, of course. She had heard already of the attack on his family, of the rumors of a conspiracy. She knew, better than almost anyone, the way His Holiness’s mind worked.

_My betrayal, Your Holiness?_

_You abandoned us in our hour of greatest need, Giulia Farnese_. His eyes, flickering red with blood and reflected firelight, had all but pinioned her to the wall. A lesser woman might have quaked in fear, but not Giulia. She had rushed forward, dropping to the floor at his feet and clutching his hands. She’d brought them to her lips and felt a rush of pleasure at the realization that he was allowing her to do so.

 _I swear, Your Holiness,_ she had murmured against the cool skin of his hand, _I left only to write my family, to beg their protection, for myself, yes, but also for your daughter and your grandson, and your children’s mother, if she would allow it. Had God chosen not to spare Your Holiness’s life…_

She let her gaze rise to his face, held his eyes with the desperate entreaty in her own.

_You believe it is God who has spared us?_

The question had startled her. She had far too great a control to allow the emotion to show on her face, but within, her heart had given a lurch.

 _His Holiness is Christ’s Vicar on Earth,_ she had replied slowly, _Surely, the fact that we have all survived so great an ordeal is a sign of God’s favor for His faithful servant._

 _Are we so faithful?_ His voice had softened, a change which, moments earlier, might have soothed her fears, but now she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She had schooled herself to calm, though. These uncertainties, at least, she was accustomed to combating.

The words had tumbled easily from her lips, the reassurances of the good fruit of his work, of God’s blessing on his papacy. And he had seemed assuaged, after a while taking her in his arms and laying his face against her hair as he had used to. She’d felt the weakness in his body then, the frailty of the arms that held her. He was yet only three days from the poisoning and had only today risen from his bed again, to move no further than a nearby chair. Her heart thudded within her chest, its movements dull and heavy. She had written letters to everyone she knew — her brother, her uncles, her cousins, even her husband, though thank God the news of the Holy Father’s recovery had saved her from having to send that one. Most of her letters had already been on their way at that point, so she’d sent another round, ensuring them that the pope was well, for now, and that her need for aid was not so desperate as it had seemed.

And now, lying beside the Holy Father’s still form, far too awake for the late hour, she wondered if perhaps the second set of letters had been far more premature than the first. He could not be pope forever. She’d always known that, yet he had always been such a lively man. Nothing, not even the dark moments of doubt and depression he had suffered in recent months, had ever been able to sap him of his tireless energies. Even the death of his beloved son, God rest his soul, had only made him restless with impotent rage, an angry bull goaded beyond all tolerance. But now…

She held in another sigh. She’d been making plans for years now, for this very moment. It was time to think on them again. _If only_ , the thought crept into her mind, _if only it hadn’t been just now!_

The sigh finally escaped her, a soft sound that barely disturbed the quiet of the dark room. Why had the Holy Father’s weakness come just now, when she needed his protection the most?

 

**

 

“She’s asked us to make her brother a cardinal,” the pope said without looking back at him. He sat in his wheeled chair beside the window, gaze fixed on the rooftops beyond the glass.

“Who, Father?”

Cesare stood two paces behind, watching his father, waiting for him to explain what the purpose of this conversation was.

“Giulia Farnese,” the pope replied. The woman’s name rolled off his tongue without the usual relish, and Cesare wondered if this request had lost her his father’s favor. “She tells us he has a felicity for numbers, that he’d make a fine addition to the Office of the Treasury.”

“And do you plan to grant this request?” He didn’t think the pope was asking for his opinion on the matter. He rarely seemed to care much for his eldest son’s opinions. He preferred to have his unquestioning obedience.

“We are considering it.”

Cesare let the silence linger, waiting. His father would make himself understood in his own time.

“None of them are loyal to us, Cesare,” the pope said, turning to look at him at last. “I heard them, as I lay there on my deathbed.” He gestured with his chin toward the wide bed on the other side of the room. “Delucca, Orsini, Versucci…all plotting. They would betray us in a heartbeat.”

Cesare drew in a deep breath. Here was his moment.

“Perhaps they already have, Father.”

The pope’s thick eyebrows drew together sharply for a moment, then smoothed out again. A slow smile spread across his face.

“Yes, perhaps they have, my son. Our family has suffered so many attacks of late. Perhaps there is a great conspiracy against us.”

“Last night I found Cardinal Orsini meeting with his cousins, Paolo and Giulio, in a tavern here in Rome,” Cesare continued. “Two nights ago, I came across Vitellozzo Vitelli hurrying home from some assignation or another.”

“Ahh,” the pope said, nodding his head slowly. “You have been sniffing out our enemies.”

“I’ve been looking for Caterina Sforza’s potential allies,” he corrected, “and Cardinal della Rovere’s.”

“A great conspiracy,” the pope repeated, his eyes narrowing as he gazed up at his firstborn, “to murder us, our family…our son.”

Cesare swallowed thickly and then nodded his agreement.

“Della Rovere had help from within the Vatican. Who’s to say how far up the conspiracy goes? Perhaps even some of the other cardinals were involved.”

“Yes,” the pope agreed, folding his hands in front of his lips and drawing his brow down in a pensive expression. “If only there were evidence to prove it.” He glanced up at his son and then down again.

Cesare lifted his lips in a tight smile.

“I believe there will be,” he said. It was already being arranged, even now, as they spoke. A forged letter planted here, a false witness primed there.

The pope returned his smile, dropping his hands to his lap once more.

“Then I believe we may find space for a new cardinal after all.”

 

**

Lucrezia’s hand shook as she raised it to rap her knuckle against the door to her father’s bedroom. Her entire body shook, in fact, with barely contained rage.

“Who’s there?” came his voice through the open door. She could have just walked in. No guards would have dared to stop her, but it was getting on toward evening, and she knew Giulia might be with him.

“Your daughter,” she replied, stepping through a moment later to find her father in his wheeled chair beside the fire.

“Ah, my dear,” he said, his cheeks wrinkling up into a wide smile and his arms opening to embrace her.

She returned his smile, a quick, cold thing, and stepped into the circle of his arms, dropping a kiss on his rough cheek. Then she stepped back and gazed down at him and waited.

“How is our little Giovanni?” he asked after a moment, perhaps realizing that she expected him to speak first.

“He is well, Holy Father,” she replied. “And he is why I have come to see you.”

Her father’s eyebrows rose in an expression of faint surprise.

“Oh?”

“My betrothed has had a letter from his uncle,” she explained, keeping her tone slow and even. “Your grandson, it seems, will not be welcomed at the court of Naples.”

The pope’s expression of surprise gave way to one of thought. He pursed his lips, his eyes dropping from her face to the rich carpets beneath their feet. She bit back the impatient words that sprang to her lips. Where was his outrage? But, no. Her father had never been known to feel much outrage on her behalf.

“I suppose that was to be expected,” he said at last with a weary sigh. “It is unfortunate, of course, but—“

“My son will go with me,” Lucrezia stated, teeth still clenched. The pope’s eyes darted back up to her face, widening slightly. “You hold something he wants. The King of Naples, I mean. You bargained for this marriage with a papal dispensation—“

“My dear,” he cut her off with another sigh and a slow shake of his head. “It took our dispensation sanctioning his own marriage just to induce him to agree to yours.” He pursed his lips again, gazing up at her with narrowed eyes. “He held out for a long time, Lucrezia, and your son was the main cause of his opposition.”

She felt molten-hot anger rising up behind her eyes, threatening to spill out through her mouth.

“He cannot marry without your consent, Father,” she said, shaping each word carefully to keep the taint of her rage from it. “You hold absolute sway over him.”

He made a soft sound — a laugh, she realized after a moment.

“Perhaps it seems that way to you, child, but we do not. If we try to force his hand any further, the alliance will not hold.”

She wanted to bite out that it had been years since she’d been a child. She wanted to scream at him, to demand to know how he dared call her child when it had been he who had orchestrated the bitter end of her childhood. But she did not. She held her lips firmly closed until the bile in her throat had receded.

“You refuse to aid me in this, then?” she said at last.

He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, gazing up at her with a face of perfectly-composed regret.

“It is out of our hands, my child.”

She stared at him for just a moment longer, just long enough to let him glimpse the heat behind her eyes.

“I will bid you good night, then,” she said and turned on her heel and left. She thought she heard him return the greeting, feebly, behind her, but she had already turned her thoughts from him.

Somewhere in her heart, she had known how he would answer. Yet she’d given him the chance. Perhaps this time, at last, he would put her first. Perhaps, at last, he would redeem himself in her estimation.

But never mind that. Her father’s priorities remained what they had always been — his own good first, and then the family’s, and then…oh any number of people’s before his beloved daughter’s. She knew now where she must turn instead.

 

She found her brother in his quarters and felt something ease inside her breast, as it always did when she found him safe and whole and where he belonged. He’d been out at odd hours lately, and she could guess, to some extent, what sorts of places he had been visiting — dark alleyways, dimly-lit taverns, hiding places, clandestine meeting spots. How many nights of her life had she lain awake wondering if he lay dead somewhere already? A knife under the ribs or in his back, a sword in his belly, or poison in his veins—

“Sis?”

She was standing in his doorway, hands clenched against the wooden doorframe, eyes glued to his tall form where he stood silhouetted against the fire.

She dropped her hands to her sides, drew in a long breath between her lips and let it out slowly. Then she stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.

“You are to negotiate my dowry, are you not?” she said, keeping her voice low. There were guards outside, probably loyal to her father, and that was reason enough to make sure they heard nothing. “With his uncle?”

“What’s wrong?” he said, moving away from the hearth and drawing close to her. He held out a hand, and she took it, clutched it hard in her own. “You look ready to commit murder,” he murmured.

“I would,” she breathed out, “if that would gain me what I desire.”

“And what is that?”

She drew in another deep, shuddering breath.

“My son is not welcome at the court of Naples,” she said. “The king feels that the presence of a child without…legitimacy…would be a disgrace to his family.”

He dropped her hand at once, only to raise his hands to cup her face. His eyes narrowed, searching hers.

“The King of Naples called your son a disgrace?” he asked, his voice soft but full of menace.

“Not in so many words,” she replied, her voice sounding a little breathless. “But he wrote a letter to Alfonso, expressing concern over Giovanni’s parentage. And I…” There were tears stinging her eyes now, angry tears welling up and spilling over onto her cheeks. “Our father will do nothing about it.”

She saw the muscle at the corner of his jaw ripple as he clenched his teeth. There. There was the outrage she had sought. She felt his thumbs move, rubbing the wetness from her cheeks.

“And your husband? What will he do?”

“He is not my husband yet,” she sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her cheek into his left hand. Somehow, she found that her anger was seeping away, as though his palms against her skin were absorbing it, drawing it into himself as one might draw venom from a viper’s bite.

“But if he would be, he must learn what is required of the husband of Lucrezia Borgia.”

She couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped her lips then. She opened her eyes to see his face just inches above her own.

“And will you teach him, Brother?” she asked, letting a smile curve her mouth.

“No,” he said, dropping her face and taking a step back, “you will,” and the very tone of his voice was a challenge. She couldn’t help the way her chin rose at it, the way her shoulders straightened and her eyes narrowed. “And I,” he continued, smiling a little, “will deal with the King of Naples. You will not be parted from your son. You have my word.”

The rush of relief she felt was so overwhelming she had to shut her eyes against it for a moment. If her brother promised it, she had no need to fear. She felt his arms about her suddenly, felt herself pulled hard against his chest, and the relief in her melted into something far fiercer. Her eyes flew open, and she wrenched her head back so she could see his face once more, his eyes staring steadily down, fixed on her as they always were.

She couldn’t help herself, anymore than she could the last time. She raised herself as tall as she could, straining towards him until her lips met his, and she felt them parted again, in surprise, no doubt. She let the kiss linger this time, held it past the first rush of heedless excitement, waiting, hoping. His arms lay motionless where they circled her waist, and though she felt his breath quicken in her mouth, his lips stayed just as still.

She dropped back down, took a step back, and his arms fell to his sides once more.

“I shall rely on you, then, Cesare,” she said, reaching for his hand and giving it a quick squeeze.

He drew her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss against her fingers. Her eyes rose quickly to his, but they were regarding her with nothing more than the fierce devotion she always saw in them.

“I will do my utmost,” he said, “for you and for Giovanni.”

A slow smile settled on her face.

 

**

 

“Your brother will have his cardinal’s hat,” the Holy Father intoned from his seat beside the window.

Giulia let out a soft sigh of relief and graced him with one of the smiles he had once described as glorious. It had been nearly two weeks since she had made her request, and her fear that it would be denied had been slowly mounting. When she had heard about the sudden ouster of three cardinals, Delucca, Orsini, Versucci, on suspicion of conspiring to murder the pope, she hadn’t dared to hope that one of the vacancies might open the way for her plan. Yet now it seemed that that was exactly what His Holiness had had in mind.

“Thank you, Holy Father,” she said, throwing herself at his feet again and raining kisses on his hands. “Thank you.”

“And will he be loyal to me,” she heard him rumble, “the Cardinal Farnese?”

She raised her head but remained in her subordinate position.

“Of course, Your Holiness,” she murmured. “He knows to whom he is indebted.”

He regarded her for a moment, the light flooding through the window behind him casting his features into shadow. She could see, in the hollows beneath his brows, the black glitter of his eyes, weighing her. Perhaps finding her wanting.

“There are many cardinals whom we cannot trust,” he told her, his eyebrows rising a little to add weight to the words. “Some even who plotted our death.”

“But you have purged them from your Vatican, have you not, Your Holiness? Those who betrayed you have been punished.”

“Others may betray us yet,” he replied, and that’s when she understood that he wanted more from her. Her assurances of her loyalty, her continued presence at his side — these things alone would not be enough to win her back his trust.

“Then my brother must keep his eyes and ears open,” Giulia said, drawing the Holy Father’s hands together and clasping them tightly between her own. “He must report to Your Holiness any hints of betrayal he finds among his brother cardinals.”

“Yes,” the Holy Father nodded, but she noted that he considered her still with that black gaze. “He certainly must do so.”

She did not swallow, as she wished to, or allow her lips to twitch or her eyes to lower or in any other way betray the trepidation she now felt.

“Perhaps,” she murmured after a moment, “perhaps he could report to you on other things as well. Anything of use that he may…discover…here in the Vatican.”

At last, she saw a slight lift at the corners of the Holy Father’s lips.

“Good,” he said. “He will do so, and you will help him.”

“I, Holy Father?” The question had been startled out of her. She could have cursed herself for the foolishness of it, but the pope was already grinning at her, and he had raised a hand to stroke one of her cheeks.

“You have a fine and subtle mind, Giulia Farnese,” he told her. “We have no doubt that between you and your brother, you will find a way to ensure the loyalty of all of our cardinals.”

She smiled back at him and raised her hand to touch the one that caressed her face. She loved that hand. She truly did. And even if she had not…what choice had she but to agree?

 

**

 

Ascanio Sforza never told the pope anything that he didn’t have to.

It was a policy founded in a strong sense of self-preservation: as long as Alexander stayed hungry for more information, Ascanio’s position in his inner circle was secure. On top of that, the less he told the pope, the less he was expected to explain. It was an all-around good policy and one he had cleaved to almost without exception for the seven years he had served as Alexander’s Vice Chancellor.

So when the news came to him about the unfortunate passing of the young Marquessa of Mantua, his first inclination was to keep it to himself. Another would inform Alexander eventually, and then he could wash his hands of the matter entire.

 _A suicide, they say,_ the letter from his cousin told him, in her extravagantly curlicued hand, _It is rumored that the Lady and her Lord had a terrible falling out some time before. He kept her locked away for nearly a month, and I have heard from those who saw her that afterward she was not quite right anymore. Some say he had her murdered. Those who don’t say he certainly drove her to commit so great a sin. The source of their disagreement, it is said, was her lover._

Here, Ascanio paused and sighed. As if anyone who made his home in the Apostolic Palace could be ignorant of who the Marquessa of Mantua’s lover had been. Still, there was no reason the pope should learn of such a tragedy from Ascanio’s lips. Let another be the bearer of these bad tidings.

 _The scandal is,_ his cousin continued—

“There’s more?” he muttered to himself. He was alone in his private quarters, where he had retreated the moment the letter had been delivered to him. He always relished Gabriella’s letters. She never failed to send him the most delicious morsels of gossip from the north. It was the reason he counted her his favorite cousin. Well, one of the reasons.

 _The scandal is,_ Gabriella wrote, _that the Marquis, far from mourning his wife’s death, has almost immediately entered into negotiations for a new marriage. The most likely candidate seems to be Mantua’s old ally, the d’Este family of Ferrara, whose daughter Isabella is more than a match for a man of the Marquis’s make. I have seen her myself, and I can tell you plainly, she is a woman who will not be terrorized by her husband._

There was more to the letter beyond that, mostly family news — more gossip, really — and a few lines at the end that left him with a decidedly warm feeling. But none of that could chase from Ascanio’s mind the tickling notion that he now had something he must tell the pope.

He folded the letter carefully and locked it away inside a chest he kept on his writing table. If it had only been the pretty Marquessa’s death… But a potential alliance between Mantua and Ferrara. Now that was something the Pope of Rome must not be left in ignorance of.

Ascanio stepped away from his table and pursed his lips in thought. There would be a ceremony this afternoon, for the appointing of a slew of new cardinals to replace those recently disgraced. Alexander would be in a good mood afterward. He always was when he felt himself gaining the upper hand. That would be the moment to speak.

The cardinal smiled to himself, took up his biretta, and headed back out into the winding corridors of the Apostolic Palace.

 

**

It was a gorgeous ceremony. Giulia could not deny that. The high vault of St. Peter’s Basilica overhead, the sweet voices of the choir, the dizzying perfume of the incense, and all around the glow of gold, jewels, and precious materials: in such a setting, she never failed to feel the proper awe one must always feel in the presence of Divinity.

At the ceremony today, however, she could admit she felt many more emotions than awe.

There was pride, yes, and satisfaction, as she saw her beloved elder brother draped in his cardinal’s red for the first time, kneeling before the Pope of Rome and kissing the ring. She had done that. She had wielded power over the Holy Father to ensure her brother’s advancement and to raise the status of her entire family. And she truly believed Alessandro was deserving. He had excelled in his studies at Pisa and had distinguished himself in his position as a notary. There was the matter of Silvia to consider, and of the children, discreetly hidden away by the family until such time as they might be legitimized, but Giulia, of all people, was certainly not one to judge a priest unfit for office merely because he had a mistress and a few children.

No, she was very proud of her brother, and she felt a strong sense of relief as well, at having him here beside her in the Vatican. Not that she herself was a true resident of the Vatican, but she spent as much time here as not. And the Vatican was not a safe place to be. Sitting in the Basilica full of smoke and golden light, an unintentional shiver passed up her spine at the memory of that night: her lover’s limp body, the still form of the Holy Father’s food taster lying in a pool of his own blood, the screams of the wedding guests, and the mutterings of the cardinals. And later, Giuliano della Rovere’s keen gaze that fell on her, fell on all the Holy Father’s loved ones — she had felt herself being noted, categorized, marked down to be dealt with later. She suppressed a deeper shudder. His Holiness’s son would have protected his mother, his sister, and his nephew, no doubt, but she harbored no illusion that the mantel of protection would have extended to cover her as well. At least, not as matters stood.

Alessandro would protect her, though. She could walk these hallowed corridors with greater ease knowing that somewhere within them her brother walked too, seeing to the family’s interests, keeping watch for any threats.

But the comfort of such thoughts only extended so far, for there had been no mistaking His Holiness’s meaning the other day.

_You will find a way to ensure the loyalty of all of our cardinals._

It was a monumental task he had set them. Not that she doubted for a moment her own or her brother’s capabilities. They were equal to such a task. It was the fact that such a thing had been demanded of them at all — and that she had been forced to pledge her brother to it without his consent — that left her heart so cold and quivering.

She had obtained his consent by now, of course. She wouldn’t dream of allowing him to step into his new position without laying bare the distasteful reality of it. Her brother had always been clever, anyway, and he listened to her. She doubted he had come to the Vatican without at least suspecting that he was to be a tool of the pope.

She had been the first to greet him upon his arrival in Rome, and she had assisted in his installment in his new palace — the palace confiscated from Cardinal Delucca, if she wasn’t mistaken. At the earliest opportunity, she had drawn him aside and explained the task the Holy Father had saddled them with.

“So, it’s to be blackmail then?” he had asked. She had smiled in spite of herself. Her brother’s forthrightness had always been one of the things she admired in him.

“Yes,” she’d answered simply. “To demonstrate our own loyalty, we must ensure his control over the entire cardinalate.”

“And we agreed to this?” He’d raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t questioning her decision, exactly, but she could tell he found it puzzling. He had yet to live and work within the Vatican, as she had. A day in that place, she thought, and he would find nothing strange at all in her behavior.

“This palace we are standing in once belonged to the Cardinal Delucca, Brother,” she had explained, raising a hand to gesture at the sumptuously-decorated room surrounding them. “And with a word from His Holiness, he is cardinal no more.”

“But he plotted murder,” Alessandro had objected, his brow furrowing. “Surely he deserved to lose his position and his palace.”

Giulia had let out a small breath of laughter through her nose.

“One would hope he deserved it,” she’d murmured, glancing toward the door. Some of the servants there had been new, and she hadn’t been sure yet whether they could be trusted. “But sometimes I wonder…”

She had seen some of the color drain from her brother’s cheeks. Yes, yes, now he was beginning to understand.

“The pope has lost a son,” she had continued. “A cardinal has plotted to poison him, and a noble lady has attempted to murder the rest of his family. He trusts no one, hardly even me.”

Alessandro’s eyes had grown grave then, and he had stretched out a gloved hand to take hold of her own.

“Then we must change that,” he had said, and all at once there had been tears in her eyes. She hadn’t felt, until that moment, how utterly alone she had been these past years.

“There is one other thing,” she’d whispered, glancing at the door again, “something you must hold a secret for now…”

The Basilica rang out with the voices of the choir again, and Giulia’s thoughts were pulled back to the ceremony. She saw that it was at an end now. The new cardinals were processing out, the Holy Father and his retinue following behind. The seated nobles all around her were beginning to murmur, speaking and stretching after long hours spent seated. She turned, her eyes seeking out her brother’s retreating form, and when she caught sight of him, head bent to whisper in the ear of one of his new brother cardinals, she was startled into a laugh.

Yes, he was certainly equal to this task, that brother of hers.


	2. Episode 3: Siblings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cesare and Alfonso go to Naples, Lucrezia gets married, and nothing turns out quite like anyone planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being so long, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Thank you so much to everyone who's read, commented, or left kudos so far! Feedback is always appreciated. <3

Cesare was disgusted — with Naples and its obnoxious king, with his sister’s would-be husband, with the position of weakness his family occupied that made this dubious alliance necessary in the first place. It was all he could do not to sneer at the man who stood across the small room from him. 

The negotiations had gone on for days now — haggling really, over an extra 1,000 ducats in the dowry, over what percentage would be in coin and what percentage in lands and goods, over how long the newly-married couple could stay in Rome before removing to occupy the lands they ruled. It was the sort of thing his father excelled at and that sorely tested Cesare’s patience. But the pope could not be absent from Rome, at least not just now, and there was no one else the family could entrust with such a delicate matter. Well, perhaps Lucrezia herself, he thought briefly and almost smiled, if only this idiot King of Naples could be forced to offer her the respect she deserved.

He did sneer now, at the king who was glaring over at him with just as much hostility as he himself felt. They were alone, in a small room off the main chamber where the negotiations had been taking place. The haggling had been almost at end when Cesare had finally brought up the matter of his godson — his eyes narrowed as he recalled it — since it seemed the useless Duke of Bisceglie had no intention of doing so. 

“And what is it that the pope’s son would discuss with me in private?” King Ferdinand finally spoke up, the low purr of his voice no disguise for his impatience. “What could you possibly say that would induce me to accept such a child in my household?”

Cesare stared at him for a moment longer, feeling the tension coil tighter between his shoulder blades.

“It is not as though the illustrious House of Trastámara is without its own bastard children,” he pointed out in a voice that was nearly a growl. “My own brother’s wife, the Duchess of Squillace—“ 

“—is the daughter of a king,” Ferdinand cut across him. He stood opposite Cesare, back against a stone wall with a window high above his head spilling milky white sunlight down upon his black head. “And who is the father of your sister’s child?”

Cesare let out a snort of derision. 

“Everyone knows who his father was.” 

The king’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and he took a step away from the wall. 

“A stablehand, I am told,” he uttered, his voice still silky smooth, “who is now, conveniently, dead. I wonder why he had to die, my Lord Cesare. I wonder what went with him to his grave.” 

Cesare almost frowned at that. He couldn’t see what the king was getting at. It was common knowledge that his sister’s lover had been found hung from a rafter in Rome. And it was just as common knowledge that the pope’s consent to allow him a Christian burial hinted at murder rather than suicide. But no one questioned the reason for such a murder. Stablehands who dared to woo high-born ladies were not known to be long-lived.

“And what are you insinuating?” he demanded at last, tired of speaking around the matter instead of just getting on with it.

One corner of the king’s lips lifted in a smile so full of disdain that Cesare’s hand twitched toward the hilt of his sword — though of course he wore no sword, not during what were meant to be peaceful negotiations and in the presence of royalty.

“Perhaps the stableboy had to die to ensure he kept his secret,” King Ferdinand stated, enunciating each syllable in his careful accent, “your family’s secret. Perhaps he had been schooled to lie. Perhaps you all lie. You claim your sister bore the child of a stableboy to hide a far more…distasteful truth.”

His entire body went rigid, and anger flared so hot within him, he saw only white for a moment. When the room resolved itself into solid shapes again, he realized that he’d taken a step toward the king, who now stood in a defensive posture, feet apart, hand reaching for what must be a hidden dagger beneath his doublet.

Cesare drew in a deep breath. This was nothing he hadn’t known — what people whispered about their family, about Lucrezia. It was all that dog Sforza’s doing, but Cesare had done for him. He would spread no more lies to tarnish Lucrezia’s reputation.

“His Majesty should know better than to believe rumors spread by my family’s enemies,” Cesare said through tight lips. He couldn’t resist the temptation to add, “And perhaps he should be careful not to confuse my sister with himself. She is not the one who has asked for a papal dispensation to marry her own father’s sister.”

The hand that had been reaching for the dagger clenched into a fist, and the king’s eyes flared wide. 

“A papal dispensation,” Cesare continued, “which my father has authorized me to withhold, should these negotiations prove…unsatisfactory.”

Ferdinand’s hand dropped then to his side. For a brief moment, Cesare thought that all the fight had gone out of him, but no. His body remained in the same posture, with a steady footing, poised for either attack or defense. His lips curled back in a snarl as he spoke.

“He would force my hand in this?” he spat. “He would call off our alliance over one bastard child?”

“And is that not what you are threatening to do?” Cesare countered, wishing with all his might that he had a weapon to hand. There could be no doubt the king was armed, and if he chose to attack— 

“I am to have no choice, then,” Ferdinand was hissing. “The Pope of Rome is to decide for me who may live in my own household.”

Cesare held himself still, kept his eyes fixed on the king’s. There was nothing to be gained from backing down now, no matter how dangerous it might be to press on.

When the king realized Cesare had no intention of withdrawing his threat, he let out an outraged snort and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Very well then,” he snarled. “Very well, your sister shall have her son. But the pope shall know of my displeasure.”

Without waiting for a response, he flung himself past Cesare, pausing only to drag open the heavy wooden door at Cesare’s back, and stalked out into the negotiating room.

Cesare let out a slow breath. Yes, the pope would need to hear of this conversation, but from Cesare himself. He almost grimaced. Of course he’d been bluffing. His father had given him no such permission to threaten the King of Naples over Lucrezia’s son. But it was done now, whatever the consequences, and even if his father wouldn’t thank him for it, his sister would.

“My lord?” he heard a tentative voice and turned toward the door that still stood open at his back. He found the young Duke hovering there, eyes wide and troubled. “H-how did it go?” he asked.

Cesare made a sound of disgust in his throat. He felt a strong urge to wring this stripling’s pretty neck with his own two hands. If only this alliance weren’t so important…and if only his sister didn’t seem to like the boy so much.

“Your uncle agreed that your wife should not be parted from her son,” he said, turning fully now to gaze down at the boy from his greater height.

“H-he did?” the Duke stammered.

“Yes, no thanks to you,” Cesare muttered. “Had you nothing to say? For your wife? Your family?”

The boy just blinked at him, looking like nothing so much as a deer startled while grazing in the woods. Cesare just made another disgusted sound and pushed past him and out of the room himself. There were better uses of his time than staring at this poor excuse for a man his sister had chosen to be her husband.

 

**

 

The message had arrived the previous morning, sent not to Lucrezia, but to the Holy Father: the negotiations for her dowry had been successfully concluded. She and Alfonso would marry, stay for a brief period in Rome, and then take up their residence in Naples. Her father conveyed the contents of her brother’s letter to her, though he did not read it aloud. She had almost demanded to see it with her own eyes, until she reminded herself that he was not likely to mention the matter of her son in a letter to their father.

“They expect to arrive tomorrow,” the Holy Father had concluded, a broad smile on his face. “You have my congratulations, my dear,” he’d said as he tossed the letter on the table and held his arms open for her.

She had dutifully approached and allowed herself to be embraced and her cheeks kissed. But she had felt far more impatience than pleasure at these tidings.

Standing now on the porch of the Apostolic Palace, with a servant holding a parasol above her head and another fanning her to cool her from the scorching Roman sun, she felt dread mingle with the impatience that remained from yesterday. They would arrive soon. Her brother had sent a runner on ahead to notify the palace. And she still had no word of what was to be her son’s fate. Why would he delay telling her, unless he had unhappy news to share?

The sound of hooves on hard-packed dirt cut across her thoughts, and she raised her gaze to the nearby city gates to see a group of riders cantering through. Her eye picked out her brother almost at once. She hardly tore her gaze from him as the group slowed to a stop and he tossed the reins of his mount to a waiting groom and hopped down from the saddle.

She was startled when she felt someone take her hands, but she turned and found Alfonso standing in front of her, a wide grin on his face.

“I have returned,” he said, his voice hoarse from the dust of the road.

“Was it an easy journey?” she asked as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Over his shoulder, she could see Cesare taking the steps of the palace porch two at a time. He was in a hurry. Did he look pleased? She couldn’t quite see his face. 

“Indeed it was, my love,” Alfonso was saying. “I will tell you all about it when I’ve had a chance to wash all this dirt off.”

She managed a smile and a little laugh, and then he relinquished her, and her head jerked up to meet Cesare’s eyes where he’d come up behind her betrothed.

“Welcome home,” she murmured, not bothering to keep the tremor from her voice this time.

He grinned at her, and she felt the tightness in her shoulders ease.

“It is good to be home,” he said, leaning in close to kiss her cheek as well. “You shall have your son, Sis,” he whispered and then pulled back, still grinning.

Unbidden, a smile sprang to her lips and, heedless of his dusty clothes, she threw her arms around him and pressed their cheeks together. 

“Thank you,” she breathed. She wanted to say more, but that could wait until later, when they could be alone.

“Anything for you,” he murmured back, and then, stepping away, “I must go see the Holy Father now.” She thought she detected a line between his brows and frowned in response. “I’ll explain more later.”

He reached down and gave her hand a little squeeze, and then he was heading into the palace.

 

 

When she heard a knock on the door of her rooms later, her heart leapt in her chest. She was seated on the carpet beside the new nursemaid and her son, who was happily smashing a wooden toy bull his grandfather had given him against the floor.

“Let him in, please,” she told the nursemaid, who jumped to her feet at once and opened the door to…Alfonso.

“He looks happy,” her betrothed said as he strolled in and came to a stop near where she and Giovanni sat. She smiled and cast a glance at the nursemaid, who immediately curtsied and left, closing the door behind her.

“As he should be,” Lucrezia responded, returning her gaze to the man standing above her. She gestured to the floor beside Giovanni, and Alfonso looked taken aback for a moment. But he took the hint and crouched down on the carpet next to the small boy, who blinked up at him with wide, brown eyes. “He will be accompanying us to Naples after all, I hear,” Lucrezia continued. “He must be very happy to know he will not be parted from his mama.”

She watched closely as her betrothed smiled and nodded, his eyes still fixed on the child.

“His mama must be very happy too,” Alfonso said, looking over at her now and frowning. “Though I still cannot understand how your brother convinced my uncle to change his mind.” 

“You…weren’t there?” Lucrezia asked, reaching out to take hold of Giovanni, who had lost interest in the bull and begun to stand.

“No,” Alfonso said, then paused. “Well, I was there, at the negotiations, but then my Lord Cesare asked to speak to my uncle alone.” His frown deepened, and he tilted his head to the side a bit as he regarded her. “Whatever he said to him, my uncle did not seem pleased about it afterward.”

She pursed her lips, holding Giovanni out at arms’ length for a moment to keep him from grasping at her hair. She guessed Cesare had made threats of some kind. Perhaps he had even done as she had asked her father to do: threatened to withhold the papal dispensation for Ferdinand’s marriage. She knew her father had entrusted him with handing over the official documents once the negotiations were successfully concluded.

“It must have taken a very great inducement, I suppose,” she said finally, “to convince your uncle to accept my son, something beyond the arguments you and my brother must have already made.” 

She cast a glance toward Alfonso again, out of the corner of her eye, and she caught the folding of his lips and the way his gaze skittered away from hers. The skin around her lips tightened.

“You did argue for him, did you not? For Giovanni…and for me?” She knew the answer already, or had guessed it, but she needed to hear him admit it. She needed him to know that she knew.

“I…,” he began, his eyes still cast to the side. Giovanni was squirming in her arms, beginning to cry in protest against having his freedom withheld. “I knew there was no argument that could convince my uncle—“

“Clearly there was,” Lucrezia said, her voice low and calm. Had Alfonso known her better, he might have felt a prickle of danger at her tone.

She saw him swallow, and he looked back into her eyes at last.

“I…I have not the…the force of argument that your brother possesses,” he said, and at the anguish in his eyes, she relented a little.

“No,” she sighed, rising to her feet and lifting Giovanni after her. “Few people do.”

While he busied himself scrambling to his feet, she bent to let her son’s feet touch the floor and then hovered close behind as he tottered off across the carpet.

“Let me make it up to you,” she heard Alfonso say behind her. She kept her eyes trained on her son. He was becoming a very confident walker, and she knew it would only take a moment’s inattention for him to move out of her sight. However, she felt Alfonso draw near, his hands clasping her waist, his face bending near her ear. “How can I prove to you that I am your devoted servant?” 

A week or two ago, she might have turned in his arms, captured his lips with her own, let her hands wander down, touching him, teasing him. Virgin or no, he was still a man, and she had no doubt she could convince him that they were already as good as married and St. Agnes must surely hold his vow fulfilled.

Today, though, his touch, though pleasing, excited no desire in her to tease him. She leaned back against him with a sigh, her eyes still watching her son make his way across to where a lion made of multicolored fabric lay discarded on the carpet.

“I know you are, my love,” she said. “You proved it to me on the day we first met one another. Or do you not remember?”

A tickle of breath against her ear let her know that he had laughed.

“I remember,” he whispered, pressing warm lips against the spot where her jaw met her throat. A shiver passed through her at the sensation, and she wondered if perhaps she had been mistaken. Perhaps she did wish to provoke him.

“You said you wanted me,” she reminded him, “more than you wanted Lucrezia Borgia, or the pope’s daughter. I alone, just myself…that was enough for you.”

“Yes,” he whispered, his lips moving over to her cheek now “You are all I ever wanted in a wife.”

She closed her eyes and breathed out another sigh.

“And do you _want_ me?” she pressed. “Do you wish your vow did not prevent you from having me, here and now?” She reached a hand behind her, ran it up his thigh to pause just a hairsbreadth from where she could sense already how much he desired her.

She heard him draw in a sharp breath, and then she felt herself released. She almost laughed. Of course. Of course he would deny her. She opened her eyes, found her son with them, seated once again and chewing on his toy lion. She did not turn to see the disapproving look her betrothed must be gracing her with.

“I wish you would not tempt me,” she heard him say, and she did laugh now.

“Virtue cannot exist without temptation,” she said, casting him a brittle smile over her shoulder. “But if you find my presence too great a threat to your virtue,” she said, making her way over to where her son sat, “perhaps it would be better for you to go now. It is almost time to feed him.”

She picked Giovanni up, against his protests, and holding him in front of her with the air of one throwing down a gauntlet, turned to face Alfonso’s stormy look. 

“Very well then,” he said, raising his chin a bit when she met his eyes. He offered her a slight bow. “Until this evening.”

She returned the courtesy with a slight nod of her head, and then he left, shutting the door to her apartments behind him.

It was nearly an hour later that her brother finally appeared. He knocked gently, a fact that made her smile with fondness. He remembered — of course he did — that it was the hour at which Giovanni normally took his nap.

She rose to let him in, easing the door open to keep it from creaking, and ushered him in with a finger held to smiling lips. He returned her happy expression and followed her into the room, closing the door behind him just as quietly as she had opened it. 

He went at once to her bed and laid himself down on it, face gazing up at the frescoed ceiling and legs dangling off the end. He must be tired, she thought, after his long journey. She followed after, settling herself on the bed lengthwise and propping herself up on one elbow so that she could watch his face. 

“He sleeps?” he asked once she had arranged herself, and she nodded.

“Tell me what happened,” she urged him, keeping her voice low so it would not carry to the baby’s room.

He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath.

“The king was adamant,” he sighed. “I had to threaten him with denying our father’s approval for his marriage.” 

“The Holy Father gave you leave to do that?” she asked, reaching out to stroke the curls that hung near his forehead. He sucked in another breath at the touch, and she saw some of the tense lines in his face ease. 

“No,” he half-laughed, “you must know he did not.”

She breathed out a laugh of her own.

“Was our father very angry with you?” 

“Furious,” her brother answered, his lips quirking up into a smile. “I have been accused of incompetence and of lacking the judgment to properly protect our family’s interests.” 

She laughed again, more loudly this time.

“Let him first remove the plank from his own eye,” she muttered and was rewarded by another laugh from her brother.

“I believe we shall both live to be old and grey without once hearing our father admit that he can be wrong.”

For a while they lay in silence, he with his eyes closed, she softly stroking his hair, thinking.

“He cannot live forever,” she said after a while, and at last he opened his eyes.

“No,” he agreed, gazing up at her, unblinking. “And our task is to ensure that when that time comes, this family can survive.”

Her body felt so weary all of a sudden. She pulled her fingers from his hair and let herself drop down onto the bed fully, her cheek coming to rest against the coverlet.

“And so I marry Naples,” she murmured into the soft fabric.

“Has the idea grown distasteful to you?” she heard him ask, a new, urgent tone in his voice. “I will not have you forced again into a marriage you do not want.”

Her lips twitched up into a smile, though she knew he could not see her face.

“I must marry,” she said with a shake of her head. “You know that as well as I. And if I must, I’d rather Alfonso than any other.”

He stayed silent at that, but what more was there to say? As he’d told her only a moment before, they must secure their family’s safety. Her marriage was key to that…as would his be, now that he had set aside the church. She’d done her best to avoid thinking about it up until now, but there was no escaping it. Sooner, rather than later, her brother must take a bride, some noblewoman somewhere, or perhaps even a princess. She herself married a prince — minuscule though his principality may be. Without meaning to, her brain began parading names before her: Aragón, Castile, Navarre, perhaps even France…or perhaps somewhere closer by. Venice? Or even a family of the Romagna?

She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about such things now, not while she still had him here beside her, still entirely hers. She rose onto her elbow again, gazing down at his beloved features, and without thinking about it, she leaned down to press her lips against his. She hadn’t meant it to be anything more than a brief embrace, no greater a thing than any she had given him before, but she found to her surprise that his lips were responding, molding themselves to hers, and all at once she felt a hand against her hair, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss.

She parted her lips, felt him do the same beneath her, and the hand that stroked her hair slid down to run its fingers against her neck, the gentle pressure stirring a shiver from her and making her press her lips against his more urgently. She raised her free hand to take ahold of the one that gripped her throat, to intertwine their fingers, to urge his touch lower.

She broke the kiss for a moment, to allow them both to draw breath. She heard how ragged his breathing had grown, and her own sounded little calmer. Her heart was clamoring inside her breast, and her veins were all afire.

His hand lay against the skin of her chest now, just below her throat, just above the curve of her bosom. How she longed for him to move it, just that little bit farther. It would be so easy, just a few inches more—

“Lucrezia,” he whispered. Their mouths were still so close that she felt the word brush against her lips as it left his. But when she went to close the distance between them once more, his hand against her chest forestalled her.

She closed her eyes. Why had she expected this time to be different from any of the others?

“What am I doing?” she heard him ask, so she leaned herself back, just enough to gaze steadily into his troubled eyes.

“The same thing I am doing, Brother,” she said, “Giving a kiss to one you love.”

His eyelids dropped down a little as his gaze fell to her lips.

“Is that all?” he asked, and she took courage from the humor in his tone.

“It could be more,” she said, and his eyes rose at once to hers. She could almost read his thoughts in them: the fear and the longing raging the same battle they had fought within her. Except all her fear had burned itself away a long time ago. 

“How?” he asked at last. “How could…how could I ever feel more for you than I already do?”

Inside her chest, her heart began to thud loudly again. She reached her hand up once more to intertwine her fingers with his. She realized there were tears falling from her eyes when she saw one of them drop from her face and onto his cheek. 

He sat up then, pulling her with him until they sat side by side in the center of her bed. He kept their fingers intertwined but lowered his hand to the bedcovers between them and reached his other hand to brush the moisture from his cheek.

“Sometimes I feel like my heart lives inside your chest,” he told her, and she couldn’t tear her eyes from his face, not the way he was staring at her now. “Sometimes I feel that I look at you not because I want to but because I must, because I am not whole until I look into those eyes and see my own soul gazing back at me.”

“Do you think I do not feel the same?” she managed to choke out. “Do you think I cannot see…” She stopped, drew in a shuddering breath, “…when you look at me?”

On the bed between them, his fingers clutched hers so tightly she felt pain, but she returned his grip, strength for strength.

“I swear,” he said, his voice so low she could hardly hear it, “I swear I will always be yours, only yours. Anything you want, you may ask of me—“

“Except for this?” she countered.

He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head.

“Even this,” he said, “but don’t. Please.”

She bit her lip, holding back the urge to fling her arms about him, draw him to her once again.

“Why?” she demanded, her voice still shaking though her tears had stopped.

He shook his head again, slowly, as though he sought to free it from a great weight.

“Don’t you want me?” 

“You know I do,” he sighed and opened his eyes. They looked nearly black now, the ring of hazel edged out by the dark of his pupils. She stretched her free hand toward his face, but he grabbed it too, brought it to his lips, and pressed warm lips against it. “You are the one spot,” he said against her fingers, “that is bright and good in this…darkness I’ve been doomed to live in. I cannot bear to sully that with…more sin and darkness.”

There was something wrong in what he said; she knew there was, but what was she to tell him? That there was no sin in how she wanted him to love her? Even she could not believe something so brazen. She had merely stopped caring whether or not it was a sin. But she also couldn’t believe that anything between them could be dark, could be anything but the golden light that swelled inside her any time they so much as stood in the same room as one another.

There was anguish in his eyes, though, so much fear, and so much pain. She had told him once that she would save him, and she wanted desperately to do so still. Maybe this was how she saved him — by keeping him from committing the one sin it seemed his soul truly dreaded.

“I would do anything to make you happy,” she told him. She watched his eyes fill with relief, then, but she could see something else in them as well. Regret, she thought…or hoped.

He opened his mouth to speak, but next door there was a sudden cry. Giovanni had woken from his nap. She pulled her hands from Cesare’s and leaned forward to place the briefest of kisses against his lips. She did not look to see his face before she lowered herself from the bed and went to soothe her wailing son.

 

**

 

Rodrigo regarded his eldest son with what he had to admit was a measure of uneasiness. It was not the first time he had felt such a thing. In fact, he could still remember the first time, more than a year ago now, that it had struck him he hadn’t a clue what his eldest son was thinking.

Up until that moment, he would have claimed that he could read any of his children as easily as he read a gospel. 

Jofré, for example, who was still little more than a child, was simple and straightforward, like the Gospel according to St. Mark. And Juan, a bit more mature but still rough in his own way and undeniably forthright — Rodrigo might have described him, perhaps, as the Gospel according to St. Matthew. His only daughter, Lucrezia, would be none other than the Apostle of Love himself, St. John, a different thing entirely from the others, set apart as she always must be due to her sex. And his son, Cesare, not unlike his brothers but more refined, more careful, more capable of detachment and clear, analytical thinking — he was the Gospel according to St. Luke.

Or so Rodrigo had thought, up until the reports had started coming in of secret battles, late-night dealings, murders, torture, and he had looked into his eldest son’s face and understood that he might have misread him. 

These days, he had come to think of Cesare less as a gospel and more as something on the order of the Book of Revelation: a collection of signs and symbols whose meaning the reader might guess but never know.

This cipher stood before him now, staring him down with a gaze that was as full of challenge as it was of love. But Rodrigo had decided that if he was not to decode the workings of his son Cesare’s mind, he could at least turn him outward. Let him be a mystery to confound their enemies.

“He has invited Caterina Sforza to your sister’s wedding,” Rodrigo stated, letting his brows draw down into an expression of deepest displeasure. 

“Who has, Father?” Cesare asked, his tone full of caution.

“The King of Naples,” Rodrigo barked, raising a finger to point it at his recalcitrant son. “This is your doing, Cesare! This is what your intemperance has wrought.” 

This did not have quite the desired effect. Cesare’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded thoughtfully. 

“I threatened our alliance, so he does the same,” he said. “He shows us there are others he could ally himself with.” 

“Our greatest enemy!” Rodrigo thundered, needled by his son’s refusal to be cowed.

“Then forbid her to come,” Cesare shrugged.

The pope scoffed, dropping his accusatory finger and spreading his arms wide in a gesture of disbelief.

“Would you have the alliance broken before your sister even speaks her wedding vows?”

He saw the boy’s eyes flicker and a muscle twitch in his jaw as he clenched it shut. There, that had gotten to him.

“Then let her come,” Cesare said, his voice a little lower but his eyes still defiant.

“We have no other choice,” Rodrigo said, dropping his hands and pacing over to the edge of the balcony. He looked down at the city below, the bustle of people that could be seen there just beyond the Vatican’s enclosing walls. “We need a new alliance,” he muttered, clasping his hands behind his back. “The only reason he dares to threaten us in this way is because he knows we have no other friends to turn to.”

There was no answer from his son. Rodrigo felt very weary all of a sudden. He was almost sure Cesare had already guessed where his father’s thoughts tended, but he was waiting, forcing him to spell it out.

“In the north, Ferrara allies herself with Mantua,” Rodrigo sighed, “and in the south, before the ink is even dry on their treaty with us, Naples hints at an alliance with the Sforza… The Sforza, who hold Pesaro, Imola, Forlì, Milan—“

“Then let us ally ourselves with a power greater than all of them,” Cesare cut in, and Rodrigo almost smiled. “The King of France has sent his ambassador, has he not?”

“Indeed he has,” Rodrigo said, turning to face his son again at last. “The king wants an annulment.”

He watched his son’s eyes narrow, watched the gears turning inside the machine of his mind. He wondered what new plan it was constructing, how Rodrigo’s ideas were being reshaped, twisted, molded into something even he could never have conceived.

“So I will go to France for you, Father,” Cesare told him, setting his feet apart and squaring his shoulders — like the soldier he had always begged to be. “I will offer this new king his annulment in exchange for an alliance—“ 

“An alliance sealed with your marriage,” Rodrigo finished. He had the fleeting satisfaction of seeing dismay writ plainly on his son’s face. “Yes, Cesare, you will find yourself a bride at the French court.” He raised a hand and waved away the objection he saw forming on his son’s lips. “Unless you can propose a better match for yourself?”

Cesare’s lips thinned out into a single line, and he merely stared at his father with wary eyes. 

“We thought not,” Rodrigo said, and walked over to clap his son on the shoulder. “Just make sure she has a sizable dowry. We’re going to need it.”

 

**

 

If there was anything that could be said in favor of Lucrezia’s second wedding, it was that it was an improvement over the first. At least, in Cesare’s estimation it was, and he guessed from the soft smile that graced Lucrezia’s lips as her new husband led her out of the Basilica that she deemed it an improvement as well.

The presence of their mother alone, seated here at Cesare’s right hand and dabbing discreetly at the moisture beneath her eyes, made it infinitely better. For him, personally, it was a vast improvement that he himself had not been called upon to officiate the ceremony. If he must attend — and there had never been any question that he would — he would rather not be forced to appear to give his approval.

Her first wedding gown had suited her better, he thought. She’d looked like some kind of fairy princess that day, an ethereal being who outshone even all the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica — not that she looked ill today, or any day of her life for that matter. His sister was, and always would be, the most beautiful of women.

He found that the people around him were rising from their seats, so he took his mother’s hand and drew her arm over his and led her down the central aisle in the wake of the bridal party.

The banquet afterward was better this time too, he decided, if only because it never, at any point, threatened to descend into an orgy. Instead, after the guests had been allowed to eat and talk their fill, Lucrezia and her new husband rose and led the assembled party downstairs to where a set of rooms had been prepared for dancing. While Alfonso led their mother out onto the floor for the opening dance, Lucrezia claimed her brother’s hand, and he happily obliged.

Gazing down at her glowing face as they turned in unison with the music, he decided that her smile was reason enough to call today a success.

“You make a very beautiful bride, Sis,” he told her as they stepped apart and then drew together again.

“Thank you,” she told him, smirking up at him through her lashes. “You make a very handsome wedding guest.”

He laughed at that, and they continued in their dance, making easy conversation and enjoying the effortless way their bodies moved together. Like this, he could almost forget her husband’s existence, forget his forthcoming trip to France, forget everything except that she loved him and she was his.

But the dance ended, and he had to pass her off to another partner. Several ladies looked hopeful as he made his way to the edge of the dance floor, but he ignored them and instead made for the nearest servant holding a decanter of wine. He believed that, to endure the rest of the evening, a little intoxication might go a long way.

His prediction turned out to be truer than he’d expected.

The night took its first turn for the worse when Caterina Sforza tracked him down to congratulate him on his sister’s nuptials — to flaunt her presence there, more like, but he quickly put her in her place, or so he thought. He could never quite be sure where he stood with that woman.

He polished off his entire glass after that and experienced his next downward turn when the French ambassador appeared at his elbow while his glass was being refilled, eager to feel him out on his family’s plans for the king’s request. And also eager to remind him of the prospect of his own marriage. If he was keen to block out all thought of his sister’s recent wedding, he was downright desperate not to be called on to consider his own.

It required at least half the second glass of wine for him to wash the ambassador from his mind. He sipped it slowly, trying to hide himself in a corner to avoid any further unpleasant meetings, until he discovered that said corner was occupied by La Bella Farnese’s new-made cardinal brother and the Vice Chancellor Cardinal Sforza, the two of them with their heads together and deep in conversation.

Well, thank God, at least, that that was no longer his lot in life. The rest of the second glass of wine went down his throat then, and he went in search of someone to give him a third. 

That’s when he saw them, all huddled together in a side room raising a toast to their brazen mistress, Caterina Sforza: her little band of second sons. He felt his lip rise in a sneer. The King of Naples’ profligacy with his wedding invitations had extended even to these minor lordlings, and merely because they thought to oppose the Borgia Family.

He was in such a black mood by now that his encounter with them almost came to violence. He was glad it did not. Today was Lucrezia’s wedding day, after all, and he of all people would not ruin it for her.

The third glass of wine and then a fourth followed shortly after that, and then he decided he had made a solid go of it and could now withdraw to the safety of his own quarters without remark. Once he had bathed and crawled into his bed, he was quickly lulled to sleep by the distant soft sounds of the wedding music and the warm glow of the alcohol coursing through his veins. His last thought before losing consciousness was that he would soon be able to forget this night had ever happened.

 

**

 

The festivities were beginning to wind down, and Alfonso had been unable to stop staring at his new bride for at least the past half hour. She was still out among the dancers, moving as gracefully as a goddess floating down from the heavens. He still couldn’t quite believe that such a gorgeous creature was his. She was his wife, his very own, and in a little while he would take her in his arms and kiss her on the lips and… Well, he had a general idea of what would come next, from what other men had told him, but he had to admit it was a bit difficult to imagine. However it would happen, the very thought of it set his head spinning, with both excitement and trepidation.

She looked his way for a moment, as the movement of the dance brought her around to face him, and she smiled at him, an expression that he could only compare to a golden sunrise — overwhelming and shiningly bright. He returned it, marveling again that such a smile could be his, and his alone.

A rough hand on his shoulder roused him from his idyll, and he found himself suddenly being dragged from the room.

He jerked his head around, a nascent protest on his lips, but it died stillborn when he saw that it was his own uncle who was manhandling him.

A moment later, he had been flung unceremoniously into an empty side room, and the door slammed shut behind them. His uncle was glowering down at him with black brows drawn together in a thunderous expression.

“W-what is it, Uncle?” he managed to stammer. 

“Tell me that your wife’s brother is not planning an alliance with our greatest enemy,” his uncle snapped in response.

“He…what?” Alfonso gasped. He hadn’t the faintest idea what his uncle was talking about.

“Did you not see him tonight?” Ferdinand spat, walking over and clenching a hand upon his shoulder again. “Did you not see him speaking with the French ambassador, as though the two of them were a pair of old friends?”

Alfonso shook his head. He had seen no such thing, and really, it was unfair of his uncle to expect to have noticed anything today other than his beautiful new bride. He was canny enough not to say this, though. 

Ferdinand’s fingers dug painfully into his nephew’s shoulder, and it was all Alfonso could do not to flinch. His uncle leaned forward, eyes boring straight through him. 

“You talk to that pretty wife of yours. You tell her you need assurance that these rumors we are hearing about her brother are not true. And if they are…” His uncle released his shoulder at last, and he nearly sobbed in relief. “You tell her she belongs to Naples now, and that is where her loyalties lie.”

A moment later, his uncle had left, leaving the door to the small room gaping wide behind him and Alfonso, alone and utterly at a loss.

 

**

 

The final dance was forming, but though she did not want for potential partners, Lucrezia waved them all away with a tired smile and went instead to look for her new husband.

The word sounded strange in her mind: husband. She was a wife again now, a state that she had rather strong misgivings about occupying. Well, it was done now, for good or for ill, and at least Alfonso was sweet and gentle. She doubted he was capable of hurting a beetle, much less her.

She had seen him dragged off by his uncle a short while earlier and assumed he was receiving final admonishments. A grimace twisted her mouth for a moment as she stepped from the ball room into one of the narrow side rooms that flanked it. She hadn’t the slightest wish to know what sort of advice the King of Naples might be offering his nephew on his wedding night. 

A door opened in the next room over, and she glanced up to see the very same king stalking from inside of it. His gaze was fixed on the room’s exit, and she didn’t think he noticed her there, watching him hunch his way toward the front doors of the house, no doubt to call for his carriage to take him to his family’s palace here in Rome. 

She put the king from her thoughts when she saw that Alfonso had followed him out of the room, at a much slower pace. His expression looked thoughtful, and at first he didn’t notice her there either.

“Husband,” she called, stepping through into the room where he stood.

His head jerked up at the sound of her voice. When his eyes fell upon her approaching form, they opened wide as though she were the last person he expected to see tonight.

“Lucrezia,” he gasped. 

That pulled a laugh from her, and she came to a stop beside him, drawing his arm through her own. 

“I thought I might retire for the evening now,” she murmured, casting him a sidelong glance through her lashes.

His mouth opened into a soft O, and she thought for a moment he might speak. But then he closed his mouth and offered her a single, solemn nod.

She wanted to laugh again, but she resisted the urge. He looked half-ready to run away, and she thought it best not to startle him any further.

He let himself be led away toward the staircase. A few of the wedding guests caught sight of them and raised a drunken cheer that brought a blush to Alfonso’s cheeks. Lucrezia only smiled, serene and fully mistress of the situation.

The moment the door to her chambers had shut behind them, she was pulling him to her with one arm while reaching back to unfasten her gown with the other. She’d waited far too long for this, she thought, as she captured his lips with her own and drew his body tight against her. He responded for a moment, his lips moving with hers, one hand rising to tentatively grasp her waist. 

But then he stopped, pushing her away a little and breaking their kiss.

She almost groaned in frustration.

“Wait,” he said, his tongue appearing and swiping quickly across his lips. “I-I need to ask you something.”

She dropped the hand that had been working at the buttons of her dress and spread her palms open in a waiting gesture. 

“Yes?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he blurted at once, shaking his head. Then he stopped, frowned. “Well, maybe.”

She held her hands very still at her sides.

“What is it?” she asked. 

He was still frowning, staring at her as though he didn’t quite recognize her anymore.

“Is it true that your father is planning an alliance with France?”

Her jaw actually dropped open a little.

“What?”

He made a little gesture of impatience with one hand. 

“Everyone knows he has had meetings with the ambassador from France,” Alfonso said, “and tonight my uncle saw your brother with the ambassador. He says your brother will go to France to arrange the alliance.”

Lucrezia could only gaze at him, wondering how in the world her wedding night had turned into a political discussion.

“Is it true?” he asked again, a note of apprehension coloring his voice.

She shook her head.

“I don’t know, Alfonso,” she said. “I suppose it could be—“

“It could be?” he said, brow wrinkling. “You’re telling me that your family would make alliance with Naples’s greatest enemy immediately after our wedding?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Gritted her teeth.

“Well, your uncle invited the woman who tried to murder me and my entire family right here into our own home, so you tell me?” 

“Is that why?” Alfonso demanded. “Is this revenge?”

She made an incredulous noise.

“How am I supposed to know? Clearly you and your uncle know more of my father’s plans than I do,” she tossed at him and then whisked around, stalking over to the credenza to pour herself a steadying glass of wine.

There was a pause during which she could hear nothing but her own heavy breaths rasping in her throat and the liquid sounds of the wine filling the glass. She noticed then that her gown was half hanging off one shoulder and reached up to wrench it into place.

“And whose side will you be on, if your father does ally himself with France?” came Alfonso’s voice from behind her.

The answer was obvious, to anyone who knew her and her family. She supposed Alfonso really didn’t know her, though. Her thoughts were a whirlwind, and she just couldn’t get them to settle. She took a long sip of wine and then opened her mouth to answer, but he spoke first.

“It takes you so long to decide?” she heard him cry. “You are my wife now, Lucrezia. You belong by my side.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder then, and she flinched away, a reflex ingrained in her years ago, during her first marriage. She turned at once to soften the gesture, but his hand had already fallen to his side again. He was glaring down at her with eyes filled with tears.

“I see,” he murmured and began to turn away.

The words sprang to her lips — words of apology, of explanation, words to keep him here with her, to soothe him, to convince him of her love. She caught her lips between her teeth and pressed them tightly closed. 

The door opened and then shut behind him.

 

**

 

Cesare was shaken from sleep by an insistent hand on his shoulder. There had been a dream, something sweet with sunshine and laughter, something that he felt slip from him with regret.

“Cesare,” someone whispered, a woman’s voice. His sister. 

_She must have had a bad dream_ , he thought, but then as his mind rose into wakefulness, he recalled that his sister was now a married woman of nearly twenty, and it had been many years since she’d crawled into his bed after a nightmare. His waking brain briefly wondered when she had stopped doing so — probably when she’d grown old enough to consider other reasons for crawling into a man’s bed.

He shook the thought from his mind and sat up, opening his eyes. As the bedclothes slid down his bare torso, he belatedly remembered that he had fully undressed before bed and reached down to snatch them back into place.

She was kneeling on the other side of his bed wrapped in her dressing gown. A frown troubled her brow. The confusion in his mind died at once.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Are you going to France?” Her eyes, as she spoke, were wide and clear, and he could see in them every fearful thought in her mind. 

“Yes,” he said. “I’d meant to tell you, but it was only just decided, and with the wedding…”

“You weren’t planning to keep it from me?” Her voice was so soft, and she reached out a hand to rest it ever so lightly on his wrist where it lay against his crumpled blankets. The expression in her eyes told him it was a gesture of supplication. 

“No, my love,” he assured her, raising his other hand and leaning forward just enough to stroke her cheek. “No, I would never keep such a thing from you.”

“Will you marry there?” she asked him next, the uncertainty in her eyes a perfect mirror of his own feelings on the matter.

“Our father has ordered me to,” he said, rubbing his palm against the soft skin of her cheek.

Her lips parted, and she let out a shuddering breath. He thought she must be on the verge of tears.

“Your plans make danger for me and Giovanni,” she told him. “My husband and his uncle are not pleased.”

He felt his eyebrows snap together.

“Did he threaten you?”

“No,” she assured him. “But he demanded my loyalty, to him and to Naples.”

He drew a breath to calm the sudden clamor of his heart.

“Did you promise it to him?”

“Not yet,” she answered, leaning a little into his palm, “but I will have to.” 

He ran his thumb over the swell of her cheek, considering how best to protect her. He would demand she stay in Rome, husband or no husband, if he thought he could get anyone to agree to it. 

“I will send Micheletto with you,” he said after a moment. “While I settle things in France, he will keep watch over you. If your situation grows too dangerous…” A momentary wave of panic washed over him at the thought. How was he going to stand it, knowing she was apart from him and possibly in danger?

“He won’t let any harm come to me, Brother.” He wondered how much of his fear must show in his face. She always saw more than he meant to show. “We will be safe with him,” she went on, taking firmer hold of the wrist she held and guiding his other hand to her other cheek. “Thank you.”

Her hair hung loose down her back, as he rarely saw it these days, and as his hand curved itself around her face, he felt a few cool locks of it brush against his skin. All at once, his heart was hammering again, the blood rushing through his brain so quickly that he could hardly even think. She was gazing at him still, her face so open, everything laid bare for him: her gratitude, her desperation, and the flickering heat of want that he had spent so long trying not to see. 

“Cesare,” she whispered, and he closed his eyes.

“I can’t,” he breathed. “You can’t.” He opened his eyes, pleading with them. “You have a husband now.”

The flicker in her eyes flared into flame.

“Listen to me,” she said, lifting a hand and placing her warm palm against the bare skin of his chest. “I married a prince of Naples, but you are the one I would keep by my side.” She raised her other hand, took him by the shoulder and drew him close to her. “You are more husband to me than he will ever be.” 

He knew he should be resisting her. His own arms had many times the strength of the slender ones that circled him now. He could throw her off in a moment, order her from the room, tell her never to come near him again.

He closed his eyes as she drew him nearer, felt her lips meet his, warm and yielding. They had kissed an infinite number of times in their lives, yet somehow he never tired of it. He let his hand stroke down to her long, white neck. How often had he dreamed of stroking it, of feeling the fluttering of her pulse beneath his fingertips, of hearing the sighs his caresses drew from her.

He dropped his fingers to the ties at the front of her dressing gown. Just a few quick tugs at the silken cords, and the fabric fell away. He felt her moving in his arms and pulled away to watched as she shrugged the garment off, first one shoulder and then the other.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her like this, stripped down to nothing but her shift. But it was the first time he’d allowed himself to look, to marvel at the way the thin cloth, almost translucent, clung to every curve of her form, to let his eyes linger on the flesh he could see beneath, the pale curve of her breasts, the two circles of dark pink. He swallowed and looked up into her face again. A feverish blush had spread across her cheeks, but her eyes were drinking him in as hungrily as his must be consuming her.

He watched her pull back, climb down off of the bed and then pull her shift over her head. Her whole body glowed golden in the light of the fire that burned low behind her. His head almost swam with the desire that was washing over him. He knelt forward and held open his arms, and she came to him at once, climbing into his embrace. His hands took hold of her back, pulling her body into his, and he heard her breathe a little sigh into his ear as she fell against him.

Even with her here like this, breasts brushing against his chest and thighs parted and her lips trailing hurried kisses down his throat, he couldn’t quite believe that he was allowed to have her. She had had other lovers, he knew, and two husbands now, and she gave herself to him freely, without coercion. And yet, a fear hovered in his mind still that his touch would somehow stain her, leave her marked the way he felt himself to be marked forever.

“Touch me,” she whispered in his ear and then leaned back, hands on his shoulders, raking her eyes over him. In the dim light of the room, their color was almost black, and the lust in them was unmistakeable. It occurred to him then, at last, the miscalculation he had made. She was a Borgia, marked from birth with the same stain that had always marked him.

He reached a hand for the round softness of her breast, reveling at last in the feel of it and in the way she whimpered when he stroked his fingers over her. He bent his nose to her throat, breathing deeply of the scent of her. She smelled of lavender and summer herbs, and a little laugh escaped his open lips. She had bathed before she’d come here. She must have known…must have planned for this to happen. 

“You laugh, Brother?” he heard her murmur, so he nuzzled his nose against the base of her throat and was rewarded when she responded with a startled giggle. “Stop! That tickles.” 

“I know,” he grinned and then covered the spot with another kiss.

She let out an indignant huff, and he found himself being toppled onto the bed, with her crouched over him, a few locks of her hair spilling down to brush over his shoulders. She was staring down at him with a smile on her lips and desire in her eyes, and he thought he would remember her like this always, no matter what happened from now on.

She took him just like that, flat on his back, his hands gripping the delicious swell of her hips. She reached down and stroked him, and for a moment everything in the world disappeared but the sensation of her slender fingers gripped around the length of him, but then she was guiding him inside of her, sliding down onto him, and he could do nothing but watch — the way her lips fell open, the way her eyelids fluttered shut over her eyes, the way he disappeared inside her body. 

They moved together so naturally, like they had been designed to fit together like this. He had been with other women before, even ones he thought he had loved, but he saw now that nothing but this could truly be called making love.

“Cesare,” she sobbed into his ear as she reached the peak of her ecstasy, and her breath burned his skin. 

It was a while longer before he found his own release, but she moved with him all the while, whispering in his ear — his name, her love for him, how much she’d always longed for him, how much she longed for him still. He came to the sound of her telling him she would always be his, always.

Afterward, she lay still upon his chest for a long time, and he stroked his fingers through her soft curls, feeling her thundering heartbeat gradually slow to a steadier pace. He’d thought everything would be different after, that somehow, through this one act, their whole lives would have changed. But holding her body against him now, the only difference he could find was that for the first time in a very long time, he felt nothing but simple happiness.


	3. Episode 4: The Banquet of Chestnuts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucrezia and Alfonso's marriage is off to a rocky start, Giulia's plans are finally coming to fruition, and the Holy Father has a new scheme in mind for Cesare's marriage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who's read this so far! I'm going on vacation to London for a week, so there might be a bit more of a wait for the next chapter. My apologies, but I hope you will enjoy this one! Any feedback is appreciated <3

The Lady Lucrezia rose late from her bed the following morning. None of her maids found this fact surprising. On a normal day, she was never the first awake, and after the long day and, presumably, long night she had had, it was no wonder she lay asleep until nearly noon. 

She took her time about preparing herself for the day, they noted, changing her choice of hairstyle twice before she let her dresser finish it. They passed knowing smiles among themselves. Her new husband had not been in her bed this morning, nor had any of them seen him leave her room earlier. He must not have stayed the night with her. She wouldn’t be so fussy over her appearance, they speculated to one another later, if she were not anxious to stoke his clearly lackluster affections.

Her demeanor didn’t seem particularly anxious that morning, though. In fact, she seemed light and cheerful — perhaps a bit overeager, full of a restless energy that was not native to her. But she kissed her son’s cheek with a glowing smile when the nursemaid brought him and waltzed through her morning preparations with all the airiness of a happy bride.

Lucrezia felt ready to leave her chambers at last a short time before the midday meal. She was, just as her maids had observed, in a very good mood. Somehow, the sunshine felt warmer and gentler this morning. The world around her seemed soft and insubstantial, like something remembered from a dream.

Still, she felt a twinge of nervousness. As she stepped through the doorway that led from the family apartments into the main part of the palace, she drew in a deep breath, steeling herself for the encounter that must come. The question had been running through her mind all morning — what would she say when she saw him today?

A familiar laugh interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see none other than Giulia Farnese some distance down a side corridor, disappearing through a doorway with…Cardinal Piccolomini? She frowned for a moment, wondering if her father had Giulia combing through the Vatican accounts again. She made a mental note to ask her about it later, once more pressing matters had been dealt with.

Putting Giulia from her mind, she turned her thoughts back to the task at hand. Of course, they would take their luncheon together, and she would see him then, but she had decided it best to meet with him before. They must talk things over, reach some sort of understanding before they had to meet one another in company.

She heard voices ahead now, low and urgent, and when she turned a corner, she found none other than her father and her brother, deep in conversation.

“But if she makes a move while I am in France, we must be sure the papal armies—“ Cesare was saying, but he stopped when he realized his father was no longer attending.

The Holy Father had, in fact, pulled up short as soon as his daughter had appeared before him, and a grin had wrinkled his cheeks. He spread his arms wide in a welcoming gesture.

“And here’s the blushing bride,” he exclaimed, taking a step forward and placing his hands on her shoulders. He gazed down at her, the expression in his eyes colored for a moment by concern. “You are well this morning, my dear?”

She responded with a smile and a quick nod. His concern was understandable. He knew, as so few did, that her previous wedding night had not left her well the next morning. Whatever his faults, her father did still feel a measure of anxiousness over her well-being.

“Yes, Father,” she assured him. “I am very well indeed.”

“Good, good,” he said and placed a gentle kiss against her forehead. “We can be easy now that we know your happiness has been secured.”

“Thank you,” she said, glancing up and meeting her brother’s eyes for a moment over their father’s shoulder. To the uninitiated, his expression might have looked just as serious as it had a moment before, but Lucrezia’s well-trained eye could easily pick out the smile hiding itself around the corners of his lips. She turned her gaze back to her father. “I find myself very content this morning.”

“Excellent,” he said, smiling at her one more time and patting her cheek. “We will see you at luncheon.”

She curtsied to him as he passed and then looked up as Cesare paused before her. His smile was on full display now, but he didn’t say a word as he took her hand and carried it to his lips for a brief kiss. She returned his grin with the same silence. They understood one another quite well without words. 

He dropped her hand then and followed after their father, and she squared her shoulders and continued on her errand. She hoped Alfonso would be in his quarters still at this hour. Since he had not sought her out all the morning, it now fell to her to mend the way between them.

Fortunately, when she knocked at the door to the apartments her father had provided for him, Alfonso himself called for her to come in. She pushed open the door to find him stood speaking with his uncle. They both turned to look at her as she stepped through, and she was overcome by a sudden uneasiness at the quick glance that passed between them.

“Excuse me,” the King of Naples said after a moment, bowing swiftly to her and then hurrying out of the room.

Lucrezia kept her eyes fixed on Alfonso, who was regarding her with a look of clear misgiving. She drew in a deep breath to calm her nerves.

“My husband,” she began, but he cut her off, clenching his fists together as he spoke.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” he blurted. His dark eyes fluttered over her for a moment before settling on the floor between their feet. “It was unfair of me to speak to you thus, and on our wedding night.” 

She blinked at him. In all the scenarios she had imagined for this conversation, she hadn’t considered that Alfonso might be the first to apologize. She immediately felt suspicion, inspired largely by the sinister presence of the King of Naples here in her husband’s quarters only moments before. She couldn’t guess yet what their stratagem might be, but there was no doubt in her mind that there was a stratagem at work here. The only question was whether Alfonso was aware of it.

“And I must apologize as well,” Lucrezia returned. “I was so…surprised by your words that I was not, perhaps, as reassuring as I might have been.” She took a step toward him and grasped his hand, tilting her head to allow her to peer into his downcast eyes. “Look at me, Alfonso,” she urged him in soft tones.

He glanced up then, the expression in his eyes wary but hopeful.

“As you said, I am your wife,” Lucrezia told him, and she gave his hand a firm squeeze. “And you are a prince of Naples. I have bound my life and my fortunes to yours and to Naples’s.”

He searched her eyes for a moment, the wariness still lingering.

“So, even if your brother goes to France and your father makes an alliance with the French king…” He trailed off, looking uncertain.

“I will still argue the cause of your family to my father,” Lucrezia finished for him, “And promote your family’s claims to the crown of Naples.”

He closed his eyes and let out a long breath, and she knew she’d said the right words. When he opened his eyes again, he reached out his arms and drew her to him, holding her against his chest for a moment before pulling away and pressing a kiss to her lips. When he felt her respond, his lips grew more eager, leaving kiss after kiss across her lips, the side of her mouth, her cheeks. She did her best to return each embrace, but his hurried progress made it difficult. She felt one of his hands drop to her waist and then lower, groping at her hip. She suppressed a sigh and allowed herself to be rubbed and clawed in a manner that excited not the least bit of desire in her. Had his attentions always been so clumsy, or had eagerness simply made him less careful?

After another minute or two of submitting to his embraces, she put him gently from her and reminded him that they were expected at luncheon with her father and his uncle. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” he said, stepping back and gazing down at her with eyes bright with excitement. “I will…come to your chambers tonight?”

She managed a smile.

“Yes,” she said and then took him by the hand and led him away to luncheon before he could force her to promise him anything else.

 

**

 

Giulia and her brother left his palace shortly after they’d finished their midday meal. She didn’t often take her meals there, preferring to dine in her own palace or in the Vatican — when the Holy Father was inclined to find her presence agreeable, at least. Lately, it seemed that was not very often.

Today, though, His Holiness had agreed to meet with her, so she had gone to her brother’s palace to retrieve the documents he had kept there under lock and key. They hadn’t dared keep them in the Vatican — signed statements from witnesses, accusers, victims…a couple even from the cardinals themselves. An entire book almost, implicating nearly half the college of cardinals in an impressive list of misdeeds. 

Alessandro carried it with him now, casually, amongst a pile of other books, as they made their way up the steps of the Apostolic Palace. Treating it too carefully would draw unwanted attention, and there were a few here in the Vatican who knew already what game Cardinal Farnese and his sister played and who were likely very eager to get their hands on the evidence they held.

She and Alessandro parted ways at the entrance to the Holy Father’s private apartments. With a kiss to her cheek and a reassuring smile, her brother set the dangerous book in her hands and then shambled off in the direction of the Vatican Treasury, giving every appearance of a timid, young prelate still cowed by the magnificence of his surroundings. 

Feeling safer here where only His Holiness’s most loyal guards and most trusted associates could enter, Giulia clutched the book tight against her chest and sought out her lover in the small parlor where he had arranged to receive her.

She rapped her knuckles politely against the doorframe and heard the deep voice call her in.

“Ah, our beloved Giulia,” His Holiness intoned as she stepped through the doorway. He stood near a high table where he sometimes wrote his letters or worked on other personal business. It seemed he was not working now, though, as he had his hands clasped behind his back. He raised one of them to beckon her forward, and she drew near. “The door, please!” he called over her shoulder, and one of the guards immediately pulled it shut.

“You bring us our much-anticipated gift, I believe,” the Holy Father said, glancing down at the book she gripped with white-knuckled hands. He held out one hand for it, and she dropped it into his palm like it was something hot that had burned her. “Excellent,” he grinned.

She stood silent as he flipped through it, eyes scanning each document with growing relish. At one point, he paused and let out a bark of startled laughter.

“Cardinal Piccolimini?” he asked, darting a glance up at her over the edge of the book.

She let out a breath of laughter through her nose.

“I, too, was shocked, Your Holiness,” she murmured.

“We can imagine,” he replied, returning his gaze to the carefully scribed pages before him. He turned each page slowly at first but then more and more quickly until at last he reached the final one and snapped the book shut. “This is good,” he said, pursing his lips in faint approval, “but you are missing half the consistory.”

She had expected this. When the Holy Father’s sharp gaze fell on her again, she smiled graciously at him.

“Many of the cardinals, it seems, have been either too careful — or too unimaginative — to be caught in wrongdoing just yet,” she explained, “but I have a plan to implicate them all in one fell swoop.”

“Oh?” His Holiness raised an interested eyebrow.

She explained her idea then, a private banquet with an exclusive guest list and…earthy entertainments.

He laughed when she had finished, tucking her precious book under his arm and reaching out to pat her on the shoulder in a decidedly friendly manner. Nothing he could have done could have chilled her as that one gesture did. She managed to maintain her composure, nevertheless. 

“Arrange it, then,” he told her. “And then you must arrange to implicate one more man for me.”

She sucked in a small breath between her lips. She had known this would happen. She had warned Alessandro, but he’d waved away her concerns, saying all they could do was wait and see.

“And who is that, Your Holiness?” she asked.

“Cardinal Farnese,” the Holy Father said, raising both eyebrows and pursing his lips. “I fail to find any information on him in your collection of dossiers here. Or were you planning his attendance at this banquet of yours?”

Of course she had not planned for Alessandro to attend. She had not even gone so far as to tell him all the details of it. As far as he knew, it was an occasion for gathering information and nothing more. She doubted he would approve of his younger sister playing hostess to an orgy. She had intentionally planned it for a night she knew he would be otherwise engaged.

“Please, Your Holiness,” she tried to say, “I cannot—“

“But I must insist, my dear,” the Holy Father said with a little shrug, as though the matter were completely out of his hands. “It would not do to have a man in my consistory who holds so many of his brother cardinals’ reputations in the palm of his hand and knows himself to be safe.”

“So then,” she said slowly, “if my brother were…indebted to His Holiness in some manner…then perhaps His Holiness could consider him a loyal ally?”

“What did you have in mind?” He looked skeptical, but she and Alessandro had talked it over and agreed that this was the only way.

“There is a favor His Holiness might do for my brother,” Giulia said, “an even greater one than the favor of placing a cardinal’s hat on his head.” He needed to be reminded of that, she thought, that her brother was already in his debt.

“He doesn’t regard you as the source of that favor?” the Holy Father said, regarding her from the length of his formidable nose.

“Of course not, Holy Father!” she exclaimed. “I merely made the request. He knows that it is to you he owes his elevation and that it is from you his position derives all its authority.” _And from God_ , she added in thought only.

The pope considered her for a moment with a calculating gaze.

“What is this favor?” he asked at last.

“I will send my brother to you after this,” she told him with a deep curtsey. “It is not for me to make such a request.”

“Hmph,” the Holy Father said in response, which she took for agreement. After a pause, he said, “Send him to us after your banquet,” and she almost smiled.

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” she murmured, rising from her curtsey but keeping her eyes meekly downcast.

“Yes, yes, well,” she heard him mumble and understood herself to be dismissed. It was a relief, she supposed, not to have to remain in his presence feeling all the while how unwanted she was. Still, she thought as she took herself from his sight. Still.

“Giulia!” someone exclaimed the moment she exited the papal apartments, and she looked up to find His Holiness’s daughter approaching from further down the corridor. She had her hands held out and a great grin spread across her face. “It’s been ages since we’ve had a good chat.”

Giulia almost raised an eyebrow. Close as she and Lucrezia had become, she could sense very well when her young friend had ulterior motives.

“It has been,” she agreed, grasping Lucrezia’s outstretched hands and giving them an affectionate squeeze.

“Come to my rooms and sit with me a while,” Lucrezia said, taking her by the arm and guiding her back the way she had come, into the family apartments.

  

Lucrezia detained her for more than an hour, asking outright what it was the Holy Father had her up to now. She’d not had a lie ready, such was the pity, and had ended up telling her something like the truth. She’d left out her brother’s part of the plot, though, and had managed to focus much of Lucrezia’s attention on the banquet she would hold in a few days’ time.

“The unfortunate part,” she told her brother a short while later when she’d been able to track him down and pull him into a more or less private room, “is that she seemed intrigued by the whole thing.”

Cardinal Farnese frowned and steepled his fingers over the low table behind which he sat. Giulia herself perched in a nearby window seat, chin on hand and a troubled expression on her face.

“She is still very young, is she not?” her brother asked.

“Not so young as she looks,” Giulia replied, sighing. “She is nineteen, and older than that in experience.” One terror of a husband, a few trysts, an illegitimate child, a murdered lover and brother were plenty to prematurely age a teenaged girl, Giulia thought. Lucrezia showed it more in her eyes than anywhere else — in that sly, all-too-knowing look they often took on.

“Why not invite her to this banquet?” Alessandro asked, and Giulia shot him a startled look before she recalled that she had kept from him the true nature of her plan for the evening.

“I don’t think so,” she said after only a brief hesitation. “His Holiness might not appreciate my involving his own daughter in such a matter.”

“Ahh,” her brother said, giving a resigned shrug. “But, of course, involving my sister in it is no issue.”

Giulia gave him a look, but it, perhaps, did not hide her thoughts so well as it might have. Her brother was one of the few people in Rome with whom she felt she could truly relax.

“You should tell him,” Alessandro said all of a sudden. “He must know very soon, regardless.”

A great sigh passed between her lips.

“I will tell him,” she agreed, “once this task he has set us has been settled. Soon,” she added when it looked like he might press for a more definite commitment. “After the banquet. And after you have made your request of him.”

That changed her brother’s entire aspect — from solicitous to grim.

“I suppose that is another thing that must be known sooner or later, regardless,” he sighed. “I should have guessed you would be right.” 

She gave him a mirthless half-smile and a small shrug.

“The inner workings of the Holy Father’s mind are no great mystery to anyone who has spent some time around him.” 

Her brother returned her smirk.

“Without you to guide me through this Vatican, I wonder what sort of awful muddle of things I might have made by now,” he mused.

“Without me, you wouldn’t need a guide,” Giulia replied, with pursed lips that turned after a moment into a frown. “You are not unhappy here, Alessandro? You do not regret that you agreed to this position?”

He stared at her for a moment and then let out a loud laugh.

“My dear Giulia,” he said, leaning back in his chair and regarding her with eyes that twinkled with amusement, “thanks to you, I have become one of the most powerful men in one of the most powerful cities in the world. I have many regrets, but I can lay none of them at your door.”

He stood then and walked over to her, bending over and dropping a kiss on her cheek. 

“And do you regret agreeing to the position you are in?” he asked her when he had stood upright again. 

She glanced away from his cheerful expression, out of the window toward the beautiful garden beyond the glass, blooming now with all the heady blossoms of summer. Almost like a reflex, her right hand rose to smooth over the slight swelling of her abdomen.

“No,” she said, eyes still fixed on the small eden just outside, “not in the least.”

 

**

 

Lucrezia sat by the fire, idly fingering the pages of a book of Petrarch’s sonnets. She had thought to draw inspiration from the warmth of the flames and the ardency of the poet, but she had found instead that both left her decidedly tepid.

Giovanni had been put to bed hours ago, and she’d called for a bath and then sent her maid off when she’d finished dressing her for bed. To tell the truth, she'd expected to have her evening interrupted by the appearance of her husband long before now. Already the palace around her had fallen silent. Even outside, the din of the great city had settled into the peace of night. And still Alfonso was nowhere to be seen. 

Realizing it had been nearly a quarter of an hour since she’d read a single word, she set her book aside and rose from her chair by the fire. She was starting to get sleepy, so she decided she might as well await his arrival in the comfort of her bed. 

She had already begun to drift off to sleep when he shuffled into her chamber at last. The sudden noise jerked her back to wakefulness, though, and she sat up enough to take in his form, outlined in reddish light from the fire. Something about the way he held himself seemed off…too slack, too loose.

“Husband?” she asked, her voice sounding overloud in the silent room.

“My wife,” she heard him mumble back, and that’s when she understood that he’d been drinking. 

Fear washed over her. She’d never seen Alfonso drink before. She had no idea what he would be like. Would he turn violent? Would he try to…force her? She commanded her mind to stay calm, to assess the situation and then take command of it. 

“What’s this, my lord?” She chose a cautious route, lacing her voice with laughter, keeping the mood light.

“You are my wife,” he repeated, sounding both pleased and mildly astonished. He was standing just inside the room, far away from her still, and she could see in the faint light that he was staring at her, mouth slightly open. “I have come to claim you.” 

There was great danger here. Gentle he may be, but he had pride, she knew, that she had already bruised. She’d never known a man to let an injury to his pride go unpunished.

“Then come,” she said, smiling as she climbed down from the bed and gestured toward it.

He stumbled forward at once, lips parting in a vague grin. As he clambered up onto the bed, she took a step away from it, out of the reach of his arms. He was far gone already, and she guessed he would not stay conscious long. She wondered, for a moment, if she could arrange things so that he would pass out in the middle of the matter, and she could convince him in the morning that he had completed the act. But she decided against the idea almost as soon as it occurred to her. If he didn’t pass out quickly enough, she would have to go through with it.

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she was not going to give herself to her new husband. She’d had every intention of doing so. It was her duty as a wife, if nothing else, and…up until now she had thought she’d actually _wanted_ to share his bed. 

As she watched him sitting there now, tugging at the laces of his doublet with clumsy fingers, she suddenly felt pity for him. She could have loved him, she thought, if her deeper loves and loyalties hadn’t already led her too far down a different path. She almost had loved him, for his sweet face and sweeter words. What had possessed him to drink himself silly like this?

She could guess. The thought left her feeling colder than ever.

“Wife,” he called to her then, the word barely distinguishable. 

“My lord?” she replied, still at a safe distance.

“I am…” he began but then fell back onto her bed as though he had simply lost the ability to keep himself upright. “Are we on a ship?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “You are drunk. Let me bring you a glass of water.”

“Feels like we’re on a ship,” he muttered, but she didn’t stay to argue with him. Instead she moved to her credenza and poured him out a full goblet of water. She carried it over and set it on her night table, daring at last to come near now that he lay quite still atop the counterpane.

“Are you asleep?” she murmured.

He made indistinct noises in response, and his hands twitched a little, but his eyes stayed firmly closed. She let out a long breath, most of her tension going with it.

It took a while to work his boots off his feet, but he was already breathing heavily and didn’t seem to notice. After that, she was able to lift his legs onto the bed and then tug the covers down and over him without him doing much more than stirring or grunting. When he looked to be in a more or less comfortable position for sleeping, she blew out the last of her candles and climbed into the bed beside him.

 

**

 

Lucrezia woke in the morning to her husband’s light snore.

For a while, she closed her eyes again and imagined it was another man’s face on the pillow beside her, the one who owned so much of her heart that she doubted there was any left for poor Alfonso, or any other man, to claim.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him. There he lay: her husband, in his rightful place in her bed. And as she had told him the day before, she had joined her life and her fortunes to his. She could ill afford to make an enemy of him. She had no intention of suffering through another husband who despised her. 

And yet, the very thought of submitting to his fumbling caresses, of his body on top of hers, his hands on her skin…the least that could be said was that she didn’t find the idea utterly revolting. But how many acts of resigned submission would it take for even that to change?

They must come to some sort of understanding, the two of them. Perhaps if she told him he was free to satisfy his lusts elsewhere… Not that she thought he could have any very great appetite. The fact that he had kept his vow of purity thus long convinced her of that. He was not like she in that regard — she, who as a girl before her marriage had daydreamed of a man’s lips on her lips, of his hands inciting her body to pleasure as she had seen them incite many other women’s… No, if she had not married so young, she doubted she would have kept her maidenhead ’til marriage.

She let out a soft, bitter laugh at the thought. As if being a virgin bride had been so great a thing! Would that her first experience of carnality had been anything other than that. If not for those stolen moments at her brother’s window, she might have lived a long time believing that her first husband’s brutal attentions were all there was to lovemaking. Thank god she’d known already the way a woman’s eyes could cloud over with ecstasy, the way she might beg a man to enter her faster, deeper—  

Beside her Alfonso groaned and shifted a little. She sighed. He was waking, and she must now set her pointless musings aside and play nurse. 

 

Alfonso was sick all morning, relieving the contents of his stomach twice and then lying shivering with a damp forehead under the blankets. Lucrezia dutifully stayed by him, sponging his face with a cool cloth and making him drink water once his stomach had settled.

He slept again shortly before midday, and she had time to dress and attend luncheon with her father and her brother.

“I must make my husband’s apologies,” she told the Holy Father with a slight curtsey as she took her seat at the table. “He has a bad head this morning.”

“Too much drink?” her father asked, raising an eyebrow as he served himself liberally from a dish one of the servants held in front of him.

Lucrezia merely dropped her gaze in a demure expression. She could feel the look Cesare had turned on her, and she knew he must be moments from making some disparaging remark, so instead she looked up into his eyes, smiled sweetly, and asked,

“How go your preparations for your journey, Brother?”

“Oh,” he said, closing his mouth on whatever he’d been about to say. “Very well, thank you.”

“Haven’t you heard, my dear?” her father butted in, a familiar gleam in his eye. “Your brother is to be a duke.” 

She turned a startled look on him, but he merely replied with a careless shrug and a slight quirk of the lips.

“That is excellent news, indeed,” she said. “My congratulations, Brother.”

He bent over his dinner plate in a slight bow, and she almost laughed. Leave it to Cesare to be so flippant about obtaining a dukedom.

“Now all he needs is a duchess,” the pope said with a satisfied air. “Or perhaps even a princess!” he added, raising his fork to his lips and taking a large bite of stewed venison.

Lucrezia glanced back at her brother and saw him grimace.

“It seems our father has his heart set on my marrying Carlotta of Naples, who currently lives at the French king’s court,” he explained. 

She raised her eyebrows, considering the idea. With her and Jofré already married into the Neapolitan nobility, Cesare’s marriage to the king’s younger sister would almost constitute a Borgia invasion of the kingdom, if a peaceful one. Her brother nodded in response to the question he must have seen in her eyes.

“I wonder if my husband’s uncle would agree to it,” Lucrezia murmured, reaching for her wine glass and glancing up to meet her brother’s eyes over the rim. His barely audible laugh told her what the King of Naples’s response must have been.

“Hmph,” her father grumped. “He’ll be made to see the light.”

Lucrezia nodded, but when she looked up into Cesare’s eyes again, she could see the doubt in them. She wondered, as she studied his face, whether this Carlotta was likely to defy her brother’s wishes or acquiesce to them. She knew very well what she would do in the Neapolitan princess’s place.

“Well, I hope for her sake he can be,” Lucrezia said, setting her glass down and reaching for her own fork. “She could search the world over and never find a better husband than my brother.”

Across the table from her, Cesare choked on his wine, but she only smiled as their father beamed at her and told her how wonderful it was to see such devotion within in his family.

 

**

 

When she returned to her own quarters after finishing her meal, she found Alfonso awake and picking at a luncheon of his own. The sight made her feel less relieved than apprehensive.

“You are feeling better now?” she asked, perching on the edge of the bed beside him. 

“I am,” he said, setting aside his mostly-finished meal and reaching out to clasp her hand. “Thank you.”

“What for?” she asked, patting his hand with her free one.

He closed his eyes, a look of anguish passing over his face.

“I behaved atrociously last night,” he muttered. “I should not have…” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I hope you can forgive me.” 

“Of course I can,” she said. “Look at me.” He opened his eyes, his expression still anguished. “I forgive you.”

His eyelids fluttered closed over his dark eyes.

“I do not deserve to share your bed,” he whispered. “I would not blame you if you asked me never to come near you again.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he was making far too much of what had turned out to be a very minor offense, but then it occurred to her that it would be stupid to let such an opportunity pass.

“I… I must confess I was a little frightened,” she told him, allowing her gaze to drop to her lap. “I did not know what you meant to do.” And it wasn’t a lie, not in the least.

“You must know I would never hurt you,” he exclaimed, reaching out his other hand to clasp it ardently around her hand as well. “I would never harm a hair on your head.”

“Y-you wouldn’t…force yourself on me?” she asked, raising her eyes to his and making them very wide.

The anguish returned to his expression. 

“I am the most wretched of men,” he uttered, “to make you fear such a thing. I swear,” he said, raising her hand and holding it against his breast, “I will not come near you again unless you ask it of me. I will wait,” he said, raising her hand to press his lips against it, “for your word.”

She smiled, a full, genuine smile. Never in her life had she felt more relieved.

 

**

 

“The King of Naples should be roasted slowly over a fire until all his skin falls off and he dies choking on the smoke of his own burning flesh,” Lucrezia seethed.

Cesare found the image she conjured impressive, and he couldn’t say that he disagreed with the sentiment, though his own first thought upon hearing the king’s request was to simply cut his throat and have done with it.

“Shall we have him accused of heresy?” he suggested, letting out a black laugh.

“Can we?” she asked, darting a look up at him from where she sat, poised on the edge of a low chair as though she might pounce at any moment.

“If you wish it,” he said, voice slow and careful, “it will be so.”

Her eyes flashed up at him again, holding him in place with the intensity of the rage behind them, but then they lowered, and she shook her head.

“It will not answer,” she muttered. “We are still too weak.”

He could almost grind his teeth to hear her say it, but he knew it was true. Until he had gone to France, until he had secured the support of the French King…they could not risk losing Naples’s goodwill. But what the King of Naples had demanded of them… No, of _Lucrezia_. It was unthinkable. A public consummation? Violation would be a better name for it.

He should have run his sword through the man’s heart the moment he’d first met him.

“It is an attack against me, and against our father,” he gritted out. “He strikes out at us through you. I warned our father that pressuring him for another marriage would be a step too far.”

She shook her head.

“Or it is revenge upon me, for forcing him to accept Giovanni at his court,” she said, her voice low and her eyes still fixed on the carpet. 

“We could have your marriage annulled,” he said suddenly. That brought her eyes back up to his face at once, alert like a cat that has just sighted prey. “It would be the simplest thing. The king has already stated before witnesses that it is a marriage in name only.” He felt his spirits lift as the idea took hold in his mind, and he stepped forward, kneeling down before her and taking hold of her hands where they rested on her knees. “Our French alliance already prospers. The King of France offers us much, and he will offer us far more to secure his right to marry. Soon we will have no need of these Neapolitans.”

She raised one perfect eyebrow and tilted her head to one side. At this height, their eyes were almost on a level. 

“And what of Carlotta?” she asked, a brittle note of humor coloring her voice. 

He scoffed.

“What of her? It is our father who’s so fixed on this idea of Naples,” he said. “There are many women I could marry.” _Since I cannot marry the one I wish to,_ came unbidden into his thoughts. By the way her expression softened, he wondered if she guessed what was in his mind. 

“We risk much on France as it is,” she told him. “You need me to hold our alliance with Naples, in case the King of France changes his tone.”

He bit back the angry negation that had sprung to his lips. Her words perfectly mirrored his own thoughts on the matter, but he was willing to take the gamble if it meant sparing her this humiliation.

“I will go through with this,” she said, words low and ominous, eyes cold as stones in a river bed, “but this King of Naples grows tiresome.” Her nostrils flared a little as she added, “I believe I will have blood for this.”

 

**

 

Alfonso could barely look her in the eye.

She stood there beside the bed, a servant girl wrapping her in her brocaded dressing gown, his wife — the woman he loved and had just given his purity to. And all he could feel was shame.

He knew she wasn’t looking at him either…had looked away during the act itself. He wondered if she hated him now. It was, after all, his fault that this humiliation had been brought upon her. If he’d simply lied to his uncle, or if he’d known how to argue this perverse idea from his head…but he hadn’t. 

Now the thing was done, and he felt vile, dirty. He didn’t doubt Lucrezia must feel the same, as though their love was tainted now with something no amount of water could wash away.

He could hear the familiar tones of his uncle’s voice somewhere in the near distance, mixed in with the deeper growl of his brother-in-law’s words. A tendril of revulsion curled in the pit of his stomach. 

They’d been married less than a week, and already he had failed her as a husband so many times. This night had been a consummation, yes: the consummation of all his failures. He knew now that he was not worthy of her. Perhaps he never had been. 

A new resolution filled him at that thought. He must do penance. He must make a new vow, to cleanse himself of the filth of this night and all the days that had come before it, to make himself worthy of Lucrezia at last.

He turned to find her, to search out her gaze and try to show her the resolve within himself, but the space beside him was empty. She had gone.

 

**

 

When Cesare had gained the safety of his own quarters again, he ordered all his servants out and slammed the door behind the last of them. He found that his breaths were coming in heavy gasps, and he didn’t know whether the cause was his rage or his lust or some unholy combination of the two.

The little cries she’d made kept sounding inside his head, and when he closed his eyes, he could see her face, the open mouth, the eyes that had held him as her willing captive.

He hadn’t known he would want her so much still. On her wedding night, he’d had her three times in total, and he had thought them both satisfied. They had finally taken and given everything they had ever wanted from each other. Surely, he could ask no more.

But it was all he could think of now, the creamy curve of her thighs, her throat bared as she threw back her head and cried out— He had to have her again, except that was impossible. There were eyes everywhere here in the Vatican, and she’d risked too much already, coming here as she had that night, slipping away again while it was still dark. Even at that hour, there were guards about. She might have been seen. Even now, someone out there might be whispering the proof of their infamous secret abroad. 

There came a light tap on his door, just inches from where he still stood after slamming it shut.

“Not now,” he called, stepping away, further into the room.

The door flew open, and Lucrezia strode through, shutting it at once behind her.

“My god, what are you doing here?” he whispered, taking another step back. “It’s not even the fourth hour. If someone saw you—“

“No one saw me,” she asserted, stalking over to him. She wore her dressing gown again, with her hair all loose around her shoulders like streams of molten gold. She must have come straight from the bed she’d shared with her husband, must have followed just behind him. She didn’t pause her progress as she drew near, but reached out her arms and took hold of his hands, pulling them tight around her, molding her body to him. She tilted her face back and whispered, “Fuck me.”

Her words sent a jolt through him, a line of heat aching through his abdomen, but he was so stunned, he couldn’t even react for a moment.

“Please,” she sobbed, and he saw now the tears coursing down her cheeks, the wildness in her eyes. “I need you to claim me, make me yours.” Her voice shook as the words poured from her. “I don’t ever want another man to touch me again.”

He bent his lips to hers at once, pulling her closer in the circle of his arms. She tasted of saltwater. He wondered how long she had been crying.

He picked her up then and carried her over to his bed, laying her down and then climbing up beside her. She was on him at once, fingers twisting into the front of his shirt, yanking him into range of her hungry lips. His hand reached down and caressed softly over the fabric of her gown where it stretched across the curve of her thigh.

“No,” she whispered, the sound harsh. “Not gently,” she reached down and squeezed his hand against her thigh so hard he felt pain. “Fuck me,” she repeated, “until all my body can remember is you.”

His heart was hammering within him again, with that strange mix of lust and rage. His hand stole up to her throat, clutching it between his fingers. She gasped and closed her eyes, leaning back her head to expose the white expanse to his mouth. He bent and claimed it with his lips and then his teeth, a gentle scrape that pulled another cry from her. Yes, yes that was the sound he recalled.

Her hands were on him then, tugging at his clothes, grasping, clawing. He thought he heard fabric rip, but he didn’t care. In a short time, they both lay naked on his bed, she spread out beneath him, ready and open, and he crouched above, the fingers of one hand digging mercilessly into her soft thigh. 

“You are mine,” he breathed into her ear as he pushed himself inside her.

“Yes,” she sighed, cheeks still shining with the tracks of her tears, “Yours.”

It was over quickly this time. He took her fast and hard, as she had begged him to, as the dark desire within him urged him — to burn away all trace of any other man’s touch, to wash her clean of anyone but him.

But when he had collapsed, breathless, on the bed beside her, she turned to him after only a few minutes, crawled on top of him and begged him to take her again, and again, and again, until they both utterly lost themselves in the mad ecstasy of it. 

This time, she did not leave him until the dark of the room had already begun to lighten with a faint pre-dawn glow.

 

**

 

Micheletto knelt before him, hand over heart and head bowed in a sign of formal submission.

It was not a position in which he was accustomed to see his rough-hewn assassin. He could not say, though, that the sight did not fill him with a sort of muted excitement — what one might feel upon hefting an exquisite blade crafted by a renowned master.

“And what are my lord’s final instructions?” the man rasped, eyes fixed downward.

He would leave for France the following morning, but Micheletto would stay behind, waiting to accompany Lucrezia when she must return with her husband to Naples. It would be months before Cesare would see his servant again, the longest they had been parted since he first took him into his service.

“Protect my sister,” Cesare said. He paused, choosing his words carefully. “The King of Naples has made himself her enemy,” he explained, glancing away from the kneeling man and toward the fire a servant had laid in his hearth a short time earlier. The heat of summer had broken within the past few days, and the nights were growing increasingly cooler. “She may have need of you, either as protector or…another kind of aid.”

“I understand,” Micheletto replied. “I will aid the Duchess in anything Her Excellency requires of me.”

“There is no one else I could trust with a task like this,” Cesare said, gazing down at the bent head. “You must not fail us.”

“I will not, my lord,” the man said.

Cesare nodded. He could trust Micheletto with Lucrezia’s safety. He must do so. He had no other option.

“Stand up,” he said, so Micheletto rose and stared at him with his usual blank gaze. He wished briefly that for once he could read more of what the mind behind that face was thinking.

It felt strange, knowing he would be without his servant for so long. It made him feel almost…naked. Like he was planning to appear before the French court without his shirt on. Or, more aptly, without his sword at his side. He felt like he should say something. A farewell of some sort. He reached out a hand and placed it on Micheletto’s shoulder. The two pale eyes flitted toward the hand without changing expression.

“Take care of her for me,” he said. They weren’t quite the right words, but they were the only ones he could manage at the moment.

Micheletto’s mouth opened to respond, but then there was a knock at the door, followed by Lucrezia’s voice calling her brother’s name.

The assassin bowed and stepped back, and Cesare called a greeting toward the door, which opened at once to admit his sister.

“Cesare, there’s a— Oh, you’re not alone!” She paused a few steps into the room, looking between the two of them.

“My lord,” Micheletto said, nodding toward Cesare, and then, “My lady,” and he offered Lucrezia a low bow before he made his way over to the door she had just passed through.

“There’s a what, Sis?” Cesare asked, turning a smile upon her as soon as Micheletto had shut the door behind him. 

“A banquet,” she said, walking over to join him by the fire. She held her hands out, looking up at him from the corners of her eyes. “Giulia Farnese is giving a banquet for the cardinals tonight.”

“Is she?” he asked, stepping over and sliding his hands around Lucrezia’s waist. She leaned back against him with a sigh. “Unfortunately, neither of us is a cardinal, so I doubt we are invited.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she told him, reaching up and wrapping her hands around his wrists where they pressed against her waist. “There is a little alcove where we may observe without being observed ourselves.”

“And why would we wish to do that?” he asked, bending forward to nuzzle his nose against the warm spot beneath her left ear. 

She responded with a little ripple of laughter.

“Because you are leaving me in the morning,” she said. “And I would see you smile tonight. From what Giulia tells me, tonight’s banquet should prove most entertaining for any who finds humor in the folly of others.” 

“Will it make _you_ smile?” he whispered, lips hovering near her ear.

When she replied, all trace of laughter in her voice had been replaced with a quite different emotion.

“I believe it shall,” she replied, pressing back against him for a moment before breaking his hold on her and stepping away. “Come,” she said, holding out a hand.

She turned out to be quite right. As they slipped into the alcove from a hidden doorway in the adjoining room, she had to stifle an actual giggle. For a moment, watching the way her fingers curved over her open mouth, he saw her as she had once been, the laughing young girl he had once chased around their mother’s villa. But when her small hand pulled aside a curtain to reveal the goings-on inside the banquet hall, he was quite forcefully reminded that she was an innocent child no longer.

She looked back at him, eyes shining with mirth.

“Truly,” she murmured, “these cardinals are even greater fools than I had thought.”

“Ha,” he breathed, “I myself could have told you they are, almost without exception, among the greatest fools alive.” He peered over her shoulder and shook his head. A young woman stood in the center of the cardinal’s dinner table, slowly divesting herself of a nun’s habit.

“Is this a banquet or an orgy?” he muttered.

“Both, I should imagine,” his sister replied, eyes twinkling as the woman’s habit slid to her feet, leaving her naked as the day she was born.

“Lucrezia,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “this is really no fit scene for—“

“Please, Brother,” she cut him off, casting him a withering look, “do you think I have never seen a naked woman before?”

His lips twitched for a moment, and he relented, placing his arms about her waist and pulling her to him again.

“You always did like to watch,” he murmured in her ear as her body melted against his.

“I liked to watch you,” she corrected him. 

He couldn’t seem to stop himself lowering his head to press his lips against the pulse in her neck or raising a hand to stroke his knuckles over the swell of warm flesh above the neckline of her dress. He heard her breath catch in her throat, felt her hand reach back and grip his thigh.

“And I liked it when you watched me,” she whispered, running her palm so slowly up his thigh that the touch was almost agony to him.

In a moment, he had her pressed against the wall, hands reaching down to lift her skirts. Her face was turned, looking over her shoulder, watching him with parted lips. Her hand had fallen from the curtain that concealed their hiding place, but they could still hear the sounds from next door, the titillated laughs of the cardinals and the sultry moans of the whores. 

Louder in his ears were Lucrezia’s gasps as his hand slid in between her legs, parting them, making a way for his fingers to find her soft, slick entrance, slip inside.

“Will you have me here, in a place like this?” she breathed, eyes squeezing shut as he moved his hand inside her.

“Say the word, and I will stop,” he replied, stilling his movements.

“Never,” she said, leaning her cheek against the smooth stone of the wall. “After tonight, who knows when we may be together again?” 

His heart squeezed within his chest at that, so he dropped his head to her shoulder, placed kisses all along the skin there as his hand between her legs continued to stroke her, drawing out her pleasure until she begged for him to take her. He had to clap one hand over her mouth when he finally entered her, muffling her cries so that they would not carry into the next room, though by that time they blended only too well with the sounds of the banquet.

It was laughable to him now, that he had ever thought he could have enough of this, of the way she sighed and whimpered and moaned, of the fact that he was the one who made her do so, of his body surrounded by hers, cradled by it, heated and stroked by her innermost parts.

He bent to draw a deep breath of the scent of her hair as he released inside her, wondering how he was ever going to survive these long months apart.

After that, he turned her toward him again so he could see her face, eyes glazed with satiation, lips moist and bitten red. He needed to kiss them, taste them, memorize their feel.

“You will think of me, sometimes,” she whispered when he’d pulled away, “while you are gone.” 

“Every waking moment,” he breathed against her lips, “and in my dreams as well.”

He felt her lips move against his, a smile, but it tasted of saltwater again.

 

**

 

The Duke of Valentinois left Rome the following morning accompanied by the most splendid train any of those present had ever seen before. It took hours just for all the horses and mules and wagons to make their way out of the city.

Lucrezia watched the procession for a long time after her brother had bid her good-bye. He’d drawn both of her hands up to his lips, kissing each in turn and telling her he would be with her again soon. His eyes had told her he would miss her every hour they were apart, as she now felt her own heart already aching for him. Her husband had stood beside her at first, there to see his brother-in-law on his way, though Cesare had scarcely spared more than a glance and a nod for him. The Holy Father he had spoken to a little longer, a whispered conversation no doubt containing final admonishments about all of their schemes.

But once Cesare had disappeared from sight through the nearby gate, the pope had left almost at once, excusing himself to his daughter by referring to the mountain of work that awaited him. Alfonso had stayed hardly longer, dropping a kiss on her cheek before hurrying inside the palace himself.

That left only Lucrezia still on the porch of the Apostolic Palace, and her brother’s assassin at her elbow.

When the area around them had cleared, she turned a little to the silent presence beside her and spoke.

“I have heard that there are beautiful woods surrounding the city of Naples.” She kept her voice low, for his ears only.

“So there are, my lady,” he responded, his voice equally quiet, though she doubted he ever spoke much louder than this. “Far more beautiful than the garden of weeds you will find within the city itself.” 

“I am told,” Lucrezia continued, glancing up into his unreadable face, “that there are some very delicious mushrooms growing in those woods.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment before speaking.

“I have been told the same,” he said. “My lady would, perhaps, cook them for her husband’s uncle?”

One side of her lips rose in a brief smile, but her face turned serious again before she answered.

“Perhaps I would,” she said, turning to look back at a group of mules draped in her brother’s colors that was passing through the street below. “But first I would have you make some enquiries.” 

“What would my lady have me learn for her?”

She glanced back at him and lowered her voice even further.

“Find out for me everything you can about his potential successor.”

He bowed deeply to her, his stringy, reddish hair flopping forward with the movement.

“As my lady asks, so it will be done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: I edited this while hiding in my bathroom while the tornado sirens were going off outside. I hope it doesn't show. Ha.


	4. Episode 5: A Garden of Weeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cesare is in France, Lucrezia is Naples, and everyone is plotting something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've visited London twice since the last chapter was posted. Oops. My apologies for making you all wait so long. <3

“So,” said the Holy Father, sipping from his goblet of wine and then setting it down again, “Your sister tells us you have a request to make.”

 

“I do, Your Holiness,” Cardinal Farnese replied, bowing low from where he stood on the opposite side of the Holy Father’s lunch table. 

 

The Holy Father, who was sat at his ease in a low-backed chair, raised a hand and gestured for the cardinal to continue.

 

Alessandro gritted his teeth for a moment, letting his annoyance at the pope’s flippant treatment of him steel him against the trepidation he felt.

 

“As the Holy Father must know, we men of the church must constantly struggle against certain…temptations.” He watched the pope’s eyebrows rise with interest. “In my younger years, I did not, perhaps, struggle against them quite so hard as I do now.”

 

“Oh?” said the pope, reaching for his goblet again. “Go on.”

 

“I have a family,” Alessandro said, his pulse rising as the words finally left his lips. “Children, whom I would see given their proper place in the world.”

 

The Holy Father’s goblet paused on its way to his lips. After a moment, he set it down again, never taking his eyes from the young cardinal’s face.

 

“I take it from your tone that you have repented of this sin of yours,” the Holy Father said.

 

“Of course, Your Holiness,” Alessandro exclaimed. “The position of cardinal, you must understand, and the great responsibility that comes with it—“

 

“Yes, yes,” the pope said, waving his hand in that same dismissive gesture. It annoyed Alessandro again, but then it occurred to him that the Holy Father could be so dismissive because he believed Alessandro’s words to be nothing but empty posturing. After all, he himself had kept a mistress and a family while serving as a cardinal — for that matter, even now, as the Pope of Rome, he did so. But Alessandro was sincere. When the message had come to him from his sister, that he was to be named cardinal, he had wrestled long and hard with his soul, had taken advice from his confessor, had even consulted with Silvia. And they had agreed that it would be for the best to end their liaison, for the family’s safety as much as for his own soul’s salvation.

 

His eyes narrowed slightly as he considered the pope.

 

“So what is your request of us?” Alexander was asking. “To legitimize these children whom you, rightly, hold so dear?”

 

“Yes, Your Holiness,” Alessandro said, bending his upper half in a small bow of deference.

 

“Mm,” the pope said, lips pursing as he regarded the cardinal with a measuring look. “We will take it under consideration.”

 

Alessandro felt his eyes flare in shock. He would take it under consideration? That was it? It was on the tip of his tongue to argue, to remind the pope of all he and his sister had done for him, even to point out the utter hypocrisy of his questioning Alessandro’s repentance when he himself remained so casually unrepentant.

 

But he stayed his tongue. He’d seen enough of this man to know that argument alone wouldn’t be enough to sway him. He did nothing that didn’t benefit himself. Very well, then. What Alessandro needed was something to bargain with. He almost smiled at the thought. 

 

He would bide his time and wait for the proper moment to reveal what he knew.

 

He offered the pope another deep bow.

 

“Thank you, Your Holiness.”

 

**

 

Cesare set down his wine glass and turned his attention back to the woman seated across the table from him. She sat with back completely straight, hands folded in her lap, and lips downturned in an expression of extreme displeasure.

 

“Is the food not to your liking, Your Highness?” Cesare asked, taking a hearty bite of his own meal. 

 

“I’m sure the food is excellent as always, Sir,” she replied, her lips moving the absolute minimal amount required to speak.

 

“How will you know if you don’t try it?” Cesare pointed out, signaling a servant to refill his wine glass. This luncheon was barely half-finished and he was already on his second glass.

 

“I know the King of France is wont to set an excellent table,” she returned, one side of her mouth rising in a slight sneer.

 

Cesare shrugged, conceding the point, and reached for his now-full glass again.

 

This interview was not going well, to say the least. Carlotta of Naples had been requested to dine with the Duke of Valentinois by no less a personage than King Louis XII of France himself — except that the request had been more of an order, and even then she’d done her best to disobey. Or so Cesare had been told. He hadn’t been present when all the fuss had been made.

 

He’d been warned already — by Signor Machiavelli and by the Archbishop D’Amboise — of the princess’s unshakeable opposition to the proposed marriage. He’d been quite ready to consign his father’s entire Naples scheme to perdition until he had arrived at Blois and met privately with the French king for the first time.

 

“Allow me to assure you, my dear Duke, of how favorably I look on this match between you and the Princess Carlotta,” Louis had told him with a beaming, beneficent smile.

 

Cesare had felt quite at a loss for a moment, but only a moment.

 

“After all, once Naples has been secured, I will need someone trustworthy to hold it in my name,” Louis had elaborated, and Cesare’s confusion had passed. Louis meant to depose the Neapolitan king and make Cesare his regent. He wondered just how trustworthy the French king truly believed him to be. Surely he must know of the pope’s designs on Naples.

 

“I believe with some persuasion, the lady may be found to be very agreeable to your proposal,” Louis had assured him, but as he regarded the severe face of said lady now, Cesare thought that the French king far overestimated his powers of persuasion.

 

“Am I so distasteful a potential marriage partner to you, Your Highness?” Cesare asked, quirking his eyebrows up in a fatalistic expression.

 

“Your entire family is distasteful to me, and to all of Naples,” the princess declared, tilting her nose up at a haughty angle.

 

“And yet our families have already intermarried twice,” Cesare observed, taking another bite from his plate. Excellent table or no, he was too distracted to notice the flavor of his food.

 

Her face turned thunderous.

 

“You mean my family has already had two marriages foisted on it by your father, and you would dare to foist yet another upon us!”

 

“Foisted, were they?” Cesare asked. “Then I suppose that means your family’s position has been strengthened through alliance with a stronger party.”

 

“My family is of the royal house of Aragón,” she spat at him.

 

“I seem to remember the King of Aragón giving his ardent approval to my brother’s and sister’s marriages,” Cesare said, taking another long swig from his wine glass.

 

“He does not give his approval to this one,” she said, eyes flashing. “Nor does the King of Naples.”

 

Cesare sighed. It was clear he would get nowhere with her. In fact, he thought he had far better odds of convincing both his father and Louis to change their minds about this marriage than of convincing Carlotta.

 

“And if the King of Naples’s objection were to be withdrawn?” Cesare suggested.

 

“It will never happen,” she said with a derisive toss of her head.

 

He shrugged.

 

“Then I suppose I shall have to find a different bride,” he said and bent to his meal again. Across the table, the lady’s jaw dropped open, but he was too focused on his delicious food to note it.

 

 

**

 

 

“Halt!” Lucrezia called over her shoulder, holding up a hand. When she had pulled her own mount to a stop, she looked back to see Micheletto sliding off his horse’s back and coming to help her down. “Wait for me here,” she ordered him when she stood on the ground again.

 

He gave a small nod of acquiescence and then led her horse away to picket it next to his own. She turned toward the wooden hovel she had seen among the trees, a few paces from the path. Right where Micheletto’s sources had said they would find it. He had objected, in his laconic way, to her plan to come here herself, saying that he could very easily get her anything she needed. But she had brushed his objections aside, and he’d had no choice but to agree. He had insisted on accompanying her, and she had to admit she was thankful for his presence. She couldn’t imagine asking one of her husband’s servants to accompany her on such an errand.

 

And she liked having Micheletto nearby for other reasons too. His presence was reassuring. She felt that somehow her brother watched over her through the wiry assassin’s eyes.

 

It had been nearly two months now since she’d seen him on his way to France. She’d had letters from him and her father both, assuring her they and the rest of the family were well. They both mentioned, though, that the King of Naples continued in his opposition to her brother’s marriage. The Holy Father urged her to continue to press their suit with the king in person. Her brother, though, merely told her to keep herself safe and well.

 

She raised a hand and rapped her knuckles against the rough wooden door of the hovel. She had noted already as she approached the little crescent moon sign painted in the corner of the lintel. She would find what she needed here.

 

“Who’s there?” she heard an old voice rasp from inside.

 

“A woman who seeks counsel from her elder,” Lucrezia replied.

 

There was a brief silence, and then she heard footsteps and the sound of a latch being lifted. A moment later, the door creaked open to show keen, dark eyes nestled in a bed of criss-crossing wrinkles. The eyes looked her up and down slowly, taking all of her in. They rose to her face, and then a smile split the withered lips.

 

“Come in, my lady,” the voice said again, and the door was swung wide to welcome her. When she had passed inside, the old woman closed the door behind them, shutting out the bright sunlight and leaving Lucrezia squinting in the relative darkness. “Have a seat and warm your bones by the fire.”

 

She turned to see the woman pointing out a low, wooden stool by the wide hearth, so she made her way over and settled herself upon it.

 

“Now what can I do for you, my lady?” the woman asked, seating herself on a stool on the opposite side of the hearth. “Not a love potion, I wouldn’t wager.”

 

“No,” Lucrezia shook her head, “just some…items to replenish my own stores.”

 

The old head tilted back, and the dark eyes took on an even keener look.

 

“Ahh,” the woman said. “I’m sure I have whatever it is the lady seeks. But first—“ She held out a hand, “shall I read your palm for you, my lady?”

 

Lucrezia hesitated for a moment but then extended her hand and allowed it to be gripped by the knobby-boned hand of the old woman. The woman bent forward at once, turning Lucrezia’s palm toward the light of the fire and squinting down at it. Lucrezia heard her suck in a sharp breath.

 

“You have a lover,” the woman muttered, “one who is not your husband.”

 

Her eyes darted up to the woman’s face and then back down again. She felt as though her heart had stopped beating for a moment, but she did her best not to show it in her face.

 

The old woman wasn’t looking at her face anyway. Instead, her eyes were still fixed on the lines of Lucrezia’s palm.

 

“Close to you,” the woman said. Then suddenly she closed Lucrezia’s palm in hers and looked up into her eyes. “Too close.”

 

Lucrezia held her gaze, keeping her back straight and her chin high. She was ashamed of nothing.

 

“Did you see anything else?” she asked, voice surprisingly steady.

 

The old woman dropped her hand and grinned at her.

 

“You are with child,” she said then. “Two months gone, I’d say.”

 

All at once, Lucrezia’s heart was hammering hard in her chest. She’d guessed as much already, when her monthly courses had failed to arrive twice in a row. Only yesterday Alfonso had tried to call for the doctor when she had succumbed to a bout of nausea shortly after breakfast. When she’d told him to call for the midwife instead, he had gaped at her as though she had just announced the second coming of Christ. He’d fallen to his knees, thanking God and weeping tears of joy, and Lucrezia…had wondered.

 

Almost involuntarily, her hand crept up to caress her still-flat abdomen.

 

“Is the child my husband’s?” she whispered, gaze still locked intently on the old woman’s. “Or…my lover’s?”

 

The old eyes narrowed, measuring her again. She wondered just how much they saw.

 

“I think you know already, my lady, the answer to that question.”

 

Lucrezia nodded slowly, looking away from the old woman’s face at last. She and Alfonso had only been together the one time, and the timing of the pregnancy…

 

“I suspect,” she murmured.

 

“You should always trust your instincts, my lady,” she heard the old voice creak.

 

She nodded again and turned her eyes to the witch once more.

 

“My ingredients?”

 

She found Micheletto outside by the horses, back resting against the trunk of a tree near where he’d picketed them and eyes fixed directly on the door she exited.

 

He helped her mount in silence and then followed her on the path back into the city. It wasn’t until they were well away from the old woman’s hovel that he finally spoke up.

 

“You got what you came for, Your Excellency?”

 

“I did.”

 

There was silence for another minute.

 

“I don’t think gallerina is a wise choice, my lady,” he said then.

 

“I know,” she replied, slowing her horse’s pace a bit to let it fall back to walk beside the assassin’s.

 

“The quarrel between you and the king is widely known here,” he said. “If the poison were suspected—“

 

“Suspicion would fall on me at once, yes,” she finished for him. “But I think I know another way.”

 

 

**

 

When the Vice Chancellor swept into the small office, he found Cardinal Farnese already there, seated at his ease behind a tall work table. Unaccountably irritated, he drew the door shut behind him and paced over to the edge of the table.

 

“I hear your scheme is already on rather rocky footing,” the younger cardinal drawled, favoring his superior with an arch smile. “Nothing, it seems, will induce Naples to accept another Borgia marriage.”

 

Ascanio made a sound of disgust.

 

“This Neapolitan king seems bent on his own ruin and the ruin of his entire kingdom,” he scowled, reaching down and tapping his nails against the polished wood of the table.

 

“No more so than your cousin in Milan,” Cardinal Farnese pointed out.

 

Ascanio almost sighed, but he managed to suppress this sign of emotion. He could no more let his guard down in front of this petticoat cardinal than he could in front of the pope himself. Still, his idiot cousin in Milan had earned all of his sighs, and more. Ascanio was almost ready to wash his hands of him, as he had already washed his hands of his dangerous cousin in Forlì. If his family’s entire position in the world were not at stake—

 

“Without my help, your own little scheme would have never worked,” Ascanio began, his fingers pausing in their restless tapping. “I helped you—“

 

“In exchange for feeding His Holiness a false dossier about you, yes,” the cardinal said, looking entirely unmoved. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

 

Ascanio smiled.

 

“And what, do you think, would the pope do if he discovered you had knowingly fed him false information?”

 

Cardinal Farnese’s eyebrows rose in faint surprise.

 

“And how could I have known that you had primed a false witness to seek me out and give me this false information?”

 

“Mm, how indeed,” Ascanio conceded. He paused. Then, “And how, after that, could the pope trust any of the information you gave him? Or place any trust in you yourself?”

 

The cardinal’s mild expression froze for a moment. Ascanio’s smile deepened. The young cardinal’s shoulders sagged, and his eyelids dropped down over his eyes.

 

“Very well,” he said. “What do you want?”

 

“France wants Milan, which rightfully belongs to the Sforza holdings. Your sister has the pope’s ear,” Ascanio said, holding out a palm and raising one eyebrow.

 

Farnese opened his eyes and stared up at the Vice Chancellor with an unreadable gaze.

 

“My sister holds the Holy Father’s interests as dear as she holds her own,” he murmured. “She will do nothing she feels might be contrary to those interests.”

 

“Is it in his interest, though,” Ascanio argued, “to be so fully under the thumb of the French king?”

 

“Whether it is or not, I don’t see what you think my sister can accomplish,” Cardinal Farnese said, sitting up straight all of a sudden. “The pope’s son is already in France, a long way from his father’s influence. It is he who will ultimately hammer out the terms of this alliance.”

 

Ascanio’s spirits sank. He knew Cardinal Farnese was right. For this very reason, he had been sure to exercise every ounce of influence he could muster over the pope before the new-minted Duke of Valentinois had departed. If the Borgia family could be nudged away from the embrace of France, or at least be made to use their alliance to protect Milan… He thought he’d succeeded, by planting the idea of a Neapolitan marriage for the Duke in the Holy Father’s mind, but alas. He hadn’t counted on the steady waning of the pope’s hold over his own son. Why had Ascanio not devoted more effort in recent months to gaining some hold over the younger Borgia?

 

“Then I suppose you shall have to help me discover what lever might move the pope’s son,” Ascanio said at last.

 

Cardinal Farnese smiled. There was a flicker of something in his eye, something that Ascanio very much wanted to discover the source of.

 

“You are in luck then,” the younger cardinal said, “for I believe I already have.”

 

**

 

The wedding had been long and tedious, though not quite as long as many of the ceremonies Lucrezia had taken part in at St. Peter’s Basilica. Perhaps this one only felt more tedious because of the depth of her disdain for one of its participants.

 

They had just now stepped out into the center of the dance floor, the happy couple, Ferdinand and Joanna of Naples.

 

She had met the lady only a few days before, and though they were nearly of an age, she had found her somewhat childish. She had spoken to Lucrezia breathlessly of the wedding preparations, of how romantic she found it that the king had petitioned the pope himself to allow them to marry. It had made Lucrezia sad. This bride was three years older than she had been on her own wedding day — her first one, at least — but she still seemed just as naive…just as innocent and unspoiled. It made her despise the husband she married all the more.

 

“Is Her Excellency well?” a low voice rasped from nearby, and she turned a little to see Micheletto at her elbow. She felt her lips draw up in an involuntary smile. He had become as much her shadow as he had previously been her brother’s.

 

“Only entertaining some disagreeable thoughts,” she murmured back.

 

“Still,” Micheletto whispered back, loud enough to carry to those nearby, “You look a little unwell. Perhaps some fresh air…?”

 

She let her expression droop a little and then nodded in response. The manservant held out a hand for her, which she took, leaning on his arm heavily, as he led her out of the crowded ballroom and into an unoccupied side room.

 

Once he had installed her in a chair there, where she made a great show of looking quite wilted, he leaned forward and murmured,

 

“As you requested, I have spoken to the king’s servants about their opinions of the princes Frederigo and Raphael.”

 

“And what did you learn?” she murmured back, voice faint.

 

“Prince Frederigo is quite universally disliked. Many of the servants have known them both since they were children, and they say this prince is quite vicious and conniving. The two brothers have always fought, it seems, ever since childhood.”

  
“I see. And the other one?”

 

“Prince Raphael has a generally good reputation,” Micheletto said. “They say he is a severe man, with little humor, but honorable.”

 

She nodded, turning over the information slowly in her mind. At the outset, at least, the Prince Raphael was sounding like the better choice.

 

“And had you a chance to speak to either of the princes’ own servants?”

 

“Not yet, Your Excellency.”

 

“Speak to them, if you can do so without raising suspicion,” she returned. “And I shall speak to their masters.”

 

He bowed low and then offered a hand to help her rise from her seat.

 

**

 

The King of France was staring at the Duke of Valentinois with an expression of great consternation.

 

“You know very well,” he thundered, “that it is my wish and the wish of the Holy Father that this union take place, and yet—“

 

“The lady is unwilling,” Cesare shrugged from the opposite side of the high table where they both stood. “And I fear the only one who could change her mind is her brother.”

 

“Pah!” the king snapped his fingers in disgust. “What matter one girl’s objections in the face of our combined will?” He dropped his knuckles on the table and leaned across it until he was staring Cesare dead in the eye. “Naples is mine, and your family has promised to help me claim it.”

 

Cesare steeled himself.

 

“And so we shall,” he agreed. “Fortunately, my family has already established a foothold within the Neapolitan nobility. We have no need of the stubborn Carlotta or her brother.”

 

The king’s fiery glare cooled somewhat.

 

“Your brother, you mean?” he muttered, leaning a little away. “He is very young still, and they say he keeps himself away from the court…”

 

“My sister and her husband do not,” Cesare pointed out.

 

The king pursed his lips.

 

“And you believe your brother-in-law will do my bidding rather than his uncle’s?”

 

“My brother-in-law,” Cesare stated, “will do whatever his wife tells him to do. He too is very young still.”

 

“Ahhh,” Louis said, nodding slowly. “And you trust your sister’s loyalties?”

 

Cesare’s fists clenched at his sides, an involuntary response.

 

“Implicitly,” he growled.

 

Louis stared at him for a moment longer and then let out a soft laugh.

 

“Very well then,” he said, “I shall have the queen find you a different bride.”

 

 

**

 

 

The moment Lucrezia stepped back into the ballroom, Alfonso was at her side.

 

“Are you well, my dearest?” he demanded, clasping her hand tightly and peering into her face with wrinkled brow.

 

“Yes, quite well,” Lucrezia assured him, patting his hand vigorously with her free one. “I thought to join in the dancing, perhaps meet more of your family who have come for the wedding.”

 

Alfonso’s solicitous expression deepened.

 

“Is that wise,” he asked, “in your condition? Perhaps you had better retire—“

 

“I assure you I am perfectly well,” Lucrezia stated, pulling her hand from his and favoring him with a wide smile. “I only stepped out for some fresh air, which has fully revived my spirits.”

 

He looked ready to protest again, but she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips and then took him by the hand to lead him away with her.

 

“Come, husband,” she said, “I would have you introduce me to your cousins.”

 

She had him take her to Prince Raphael first, who, despite clearly being scant years older than she herself was, greeted her with a scowl reminiscent of many of the cantankerous old cardinals she had known.

 

“May I introduce you to my wife, the Lady Lucrezia,” Alfonso said, glancing nervously at her as she curtseyed to his cousin.

 

“So, you’re the one that’s scandalized the entire court of Naples,” Raphael said when she had risen from her curtsey. He was scanning her up and down in a manner that had her hackles up in an instant.

 

“The entire court, Your Highness?” she asked, smiling sweetly. “You give me far too much credit, surely.”

 

She could sense Alfonso gawping and fumbling for words at her side, but she kept her gaze fixed on his cousin. She doubted Alfonso had much worthwhile to contribute to this conversation.

 

“I assure you, I do not,” Raphael sneered. “I know it is your father and your brother we have to thank for the bastard child that has been foisted upon my cousin’s household. And not satisfied with that, they try to force his sister into accepting this so-called Duke as her husband. Ha!”

 

“Now, cousin—“ Alfonso spluttered beside her, but she cut him off.

 

“Perhaps the King of Naples accepts alliance with my family because he knows it is what is best for his kingdom in these troubled times,” Lucrezia intoned, honey-sweet smile still plastered to her lips. “And perhaps he and his family should consider the advantages of strengthening that alliance rather than attacking it.”

 

The prince raised an eyebrow.

 

“Naples may need you now,” he stated, tone calm, though his eyes blazed, “but that will not always be the case. Excuse me,” and he offered the two of them the most perfunctory of bows before spinning on his heel and heading purposefully away from them.

 

Her own pulse was throbbing so hard in her neck that she could hardly see the crowded room before her. Then she felt someone squeezing her hand, and she looked over to see Alfonso regarding her with a look of agony.

 

“My love, I am so ashamed at my cousin’s behavior. I cannot think—“

 

“It is no matter,” she said in a low voice, aiming a small smile at him before glancing around them. “Do you see a place where I might sit down—?”

 

“Yes, yes, of course,” and he led her back the way they had come to one of the side rooms. Once he had tenderly lowered her into a chair, he stepped back and said, “I will go fetch you something refreshing to drink.”

 

She nodded absently at him, her mind still turning over the encounter with Prince Raphael. Based on Micheletto’s first information, she had begun to form a vague plan of winning this prince over as her ally and then helping him to claim the Neapolitan throne…when it eventually fell vacant. But now it was clear he would not be won over, by her or by any of her family. That left the other one, the one Micheletto had described as vicious and conniving. This Raphael had been called honorable. She scoffed to herself. Yes, very honorable — the sort who primly turned up his nose at even the faintest whiff of dishonor.

 

Perhaps, with the sort of plan she had in mind, a dishonorable man would be the better choice after all.

 

“Pardon me, my lady,” a voice cut across her thoughts, and she looked up to find another young man making her an exquisite bow. Alfonso was nowhere in sight.

 

“You are pardoned,” she said, gazing with interest at the top of the unfamiliar head, “if you will rise and tell me who you are.”

 

He stood upright again then, and she realized at once who he was. They had not yet been introduced, but she had made careful note of his features when his entrance had been announced.

 

“Why, I am Frederigo of Naples,” he said, smiling down at her with a gleam in his pale eyes. “I could not help but notice you conversing with my half-brother a short while ago.”

 

She returned his smile.

 

“I am afraid he did not find the conversation very agreeable,” she said, waving one hand in a despairing gesture.

 

“Good,” Prince Frederigo said and then let out a peal of laughter. “He’s not the sort who finds many things agreeable, I regret to inform you.”

 

She tilted her head, gazing up at him and deepening her smile.

 

“And what sort are you, Your Highness?”

 

His eyebrows rose in mock surprise.

 

“Why, the sort who finds it refreshing to have such a lovely addition to the court of Naples,” he said. “And the sort who found it very shocking that the king almost parted you from your son. I assure you, I used my utmost powers of persuasion to convince my cousin it was an action unworthy of him as king, but,” he shrugged, giving his head a sad shake.

 

Lucrezia studied him for just a second before she inclined her head in a gesture of thanks.

 

“Well, I find it refreshing to meet one so kind and welcoming here in Naples,” she murmured. “You have my gratitude for your efforts.”

 

“Oh, Frederigo,” someone said, and they both looked over to see Alfonso stood there with a glass of water in his hand and an expression of dismay on his face. “I see you’ve met my, um, my wife.”

 

“Yes,” Lucrezia smiled up at him from her seat, “your very gracious cousin and I have been getting to know one another better.”

 

She did not miss the startled glance her husband shot toward his cousin, and she filed that information away for later. It seemed to fit with Micheletto’s description of Prince Frederigo, while the prince’s own manner most certainly did not.

 

“Oh, that’s… I brought you some water,” Alfonso stammered, thrusting the glass out toward her.

 

“Thank you,” she said, taking the glass and glancing up at her new acquaintance over the rim. He was looking down at her with the same expression of open good will.

 

Inside her mind, the gears began to spin. This prince was far more dangerous than the other; of that, she was certain. He wished to ingratiate himself to her, for now, but what ulterior motives his blandishments might mask — that worried her. She had hoped that she would be able to form an alliance with one of the king’s potential successors, to win herself some influence at court and give her family some breathing space within their dealings with Naples. But what she had seen this evening made her suspect that this plan would have to be abandoned. No matter which one of them came to the throne, she did not for one moment believe that the change of monarchs would improve her status at court.

 

She lowered her glass and turned a smile up toward Prince Frederigo. She would just have to find a new way to carve out power for herself.

 

 

**

 

 

Her pregnancy was so far along now that, had the Holy Father seen her at any point in this last month, he must have known at once. As it was, though, it seemed that she had at last slipped entirely from his mind.

 

She’d had to beg Vannozza to arrange the meeting. As always, the older woman had taken the opportunity to remind Giulia that she didn’t have to help her. They’d formed a sort of friendship over the past year, the pope’s two mistresses, but the inequality of their positions — her noble birth, Vannozza’s cast-off status — seemed to prick Vannozza into gloating each time she gained the upper hand.

 

Giulia couldn’t really fault her for it. She’d still helped her, after all.

 

Just as she had expected, the moment she stepped through the doorway into His Holiness’s sitting room and he’d had a good look at her, his eyes grew round with shock.

 

“You are with child?” he demanded.

 

She shut the door softly behind her and took another step into the room. Her hand instinctively went up to the small protuberance of her belly.

 

“I am, Your Holiness,” she said.

 

“But…but you said you were not able,” he spluttered. He had been sat in the windowseat beneath one of the room’s small, rectangular windows, but now he leapt to his feet. “You told me that the…the termination of your previous pregnancy had left a permanent—“

 

“So I had been told, Your Holiness,” she replied, eyes downcast. “But God, apparently, had other plans.”

 

He took a step toward her, thick brows drawn together in consternation as he stared down at her growing belly.

 

“You…you would lay the credit for this…at God’s door?”

 

“And yours, Your Holiness,” she murmured.

 

His eyes shot up to her face and then back down again.

 

“Ours?” He turned, a hand coming up to cover his mouth, and he began pacing up and down. “But it’s been months since we’ve—“

 

“The pregnancy is many months along already, Your Holiness,” Giulia insisted. She did not like the direction in which his thoughts seemed to be tending.

 

He paced up and down for a moment more before whirling on her.

 

“And you are sure the child is ours?” he demanded.

 

Red blood flew up into her cheeks. She’d known that she had fallen out of his favor, but had his opinion of her sunk so low?

 

“How can you ask me such a thing, Your Holiness? There is no one else!” She couldn’t keep the edge from her voice, and the response in his expression came at once. His brows lowered, his eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned.

 

“You have a husband, madam, have you not?”

 

“A husband whom His Holiness well knows has stayed these many years far away from Rome at the villa His Holiness keeps for him,” she returned, her chest heaving now under the weight of her emotions. “And a husband whom His Holiness well knows I cannot stand the sight of.”

 

He glared at her for a moment longer and then turned, pacing up and down again. He came to an abrupt halt and turned back to her again, the expression on his face a bit softer.

 

“We truly are the father of this child?”

 

She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling drained of all energy. Her pregnancy had grown easier in recent months than it had been at first, but she still tired easily.

 

“Yes, Holy Father. This is your child.”

 

“Still,” he said, and her eyes opened at once. “We can never claim it.”

 

She nodded. She had known as much. A pope was not allowed to claim children fathered after he had succeeded to the throne of St. Peter. He wasn’t meant to father any such children in the first place.

 

“I know Your Holiness cannot publicly claim this child, but perhaps in private—“

 

“Perhaps,” he cut her off. He was still studying her with a shrewd gaze, but the accusatory light had left his eyes. “We will consider, Giulia Farnese, how best to protect this new member of the Borgia family. Until then, we will send our personal doctor to see to your care, and we will provide you every support you may need.”

 

“Thank you, Holy Father,” she said, dropping into a curtsey, though it was difficult now to curtsey as deeply as she used to before His Holiness.

 

All the way back to her palace, her mind turned over the situation. Anger she had suspected from him, yes, that he had not been informed sooner, but suspicion? She supposed now that she should have foreseen that. He had doubted her loyalty in other areas. Why not this one as well? For now, he seemed to accept that the child was his, but…what about her child’s future? And her own? A known adulteress raising her lover’s bastard — it was a fine enough position as long as she enjoyed that lover’s protection, but when he was gone?

 

She would need some other protection, and her brother’s position within the Vatican may not be enough. She needed a worldly protector. Her mind at once brought before her eyes an image of her husband, and she shuddered. No. No, returning to her husband’s side would remain a last resort. The fact remained, though, that as long as her husband lived, she could not seek the protection of another husband.

 

Another lover, perhaps, though the Holy Father would never hear of it — not while her Borgia child bound her to him.

 

There was always His Holiness’s son… As she slowly climbed the stairs into her palace, a different sort of shudder overcame her. Once the Holy Father had passed, the Borgia affairs, including the fate of her own child, would be in the son’s hands. Now that she was mother to Cesare’s younger brother or sister, would he look more kindly on her? Or would she have to find a way to bend his will to her needs?

 

She knew a way. She paused in the high-ceilinged atrium of the palace, considering. She had seen…perhaps was the only one ever to have seen with her own two eyes… But she had no stomach for blackmail. 

 

She could still remember the shock of that moment, looking up from the progress of her orgy cum banquet to see the curtain covering that hidden corner of the hall falling closed, just a moment too slow to prevent her from seeing what it was meant to hide.

 

Of course she had heard the rumors. Everyone had. Until that moment, they had seemed nothing but exaggeration, but now she knew.

 

And she feared Alessandro knew as well. The next morning, he had come to see her, asking all sorts of questions about the Holy Father’s two eldest living children. Had they grown up in the same household? What was the difference in their ages? Had they always been close? When she had finally pressed him for the source of all these questions, he had confessed to cutting short his prior engagement out of curiosity about her banquet. He’d come to spy on it but had been surprised to see the two Borgia siblings exiting the same room he had meant to occupy himself, arm in arm and heads together in intimate conversation.

 

“And was that all you saw?” she had asked, turning a sharp gaze on him.

 

The momentary shift in his expression seemed to answer her question for her.

 

“I saw your banquet too,” he had told her, eyebrows rising. It had been a deflection, she thought. Or maybe her imagination, troubled by what she had witnessed herself, merely conjured danger where none lay.

 

She should warn her brother, she decided as she began to make her way across the cool marble of the atrium once more. If he had plans to turn his suspicions against the Borgias, he must be warned that the Holy Father’s son never responded moderately to threats.

 

 

**

 

Ascanio was bent far over his work table, intent on a letter he was writing to one of his cousins when the door to his office opened and then just as quickly closed.

 

He raised his head at once, ready to reprimand whoever had just dared burst in on him without knocking, but the words died on his lips.

 

His cousin’s man stood there, dressed all in black as usual, with those strange, blank eyes fixed on him.

 

“You’re quite bold, showing up here in the Vatican in broad daylight,” Ascanio said after a moment.

 

Rufio shrugged and then began to make his unhurried way over to Ascanio’s table.

 

“No one here knows my face,” he said, “except for you.”

 

Ascanio laid his pen aside and tilted his head back to regard the assassin who now stood across the table from him.

 

“And whatever spy you keep here,” he said.

 

The assassin’s lips twitched up in a slight smile.

 

“My lady, your cousin, was surprised to receive your letter,” was all he said. “She had believed you completely won over to the Borgia cause.”

 

Ascanio returned Rufio’s smile with a tight-lipped one of his own.

 

“My cousin in the north can be very persuasive,” he said.

 

“Ah, the redoubtable Duke of Milan,” Rufio replied, nodding slowly. “So you would join in common cause with my lady against the Borgia threat?”

 

“I would do whatever is necessary to protect our family’s claims to Milan,” he corrected, placing his hands firmly on the table and rising from his seat. “My cousin Caterina is raising an army against the Holy Father, is she not?”

 

Rufio raised one shoulder in an elegant shrug, but Ascanio wasn’t really looking for confirmation. He knew well enough that the lady of Imola and Forlì was trying to bring together the families of the Romagna under her own banner.

 

“I know she is,” he continued, “so what I would tell her, through you, is that she had better focus her efforts on Cesare Borgia and the French instead. Forget the Papal Armies. They are the least of our concerns.”

 

The assassin was still stood there, regarding him with the same emotionless gaze, but there was a certain stillness about the set of his shoulders that gave Ascanio hope that his words had made an impact.

 

“Let me see if I understand you,” Rufio said after a moment. “You would counsel my lady to turn her forces against the French. Perhaps, to join in common cause with her cousin in Milan against them? That would be a massacre.”

 

Ascanio couldn’t keep a grimace from twisting his lips for a moment. Yes, he didn’t doubt it would be, even if she won the backing of the other great families.

 

“Then she should seek a way to strike at them without meeting them in open battle.”

 

The assassin’s eyebrows rose at that.

 

“You know of such a way?”

 

“She has made allies in Naples, has she not?” Ascanio returned. “Cesare Borgia has a sister there.”

 

Rufio pursed his lips thoughtfully.

 

“A brother as well,” he agreed, but Ascanio shook his head.

 

“No, the sister is the key. Hold her hostage, and you can demand anything you want of the Duke of Valentinois.”

 

“If we take his sister hostage, we would only turn his attention away from Milan and toward ourselves instead,” Rufio pointed out.

 

“Then have your people in Naples hold her. He needn’t know my cousin was ever involved.”

 

“Or you?” the assassin asked.

 

Ascanio’s throat felt suddenly dry. He was taking a great risk, reconciling with his cousin Caterina, but what choice did he have? If his cousin Ludovico fell from power, the rest of his family would follow shortly, and with them the prestige of the Sforza name — his name.

 

“Just tell her what I said,” Ascanio muttered.

 

The assassin smiled, bowed, and then turned and strode from the room, head held as high as though he walked through a peaceful garden rather than his enemy’s stronghold.

 

 

**

 

 

Cesare’s new marriage was not even a full month old when he left his young bride at Blois and set out south for the coast. An army was amassing there — his army, the one promised him by Louis. He would meet it before sailing for Liguria, and then…

 

“Will you return to me soon, my husband?” Charlotte asked as he released her from a farewell kiss.

 

“As soon as God allows,” he murmured, stepping back and reaching for her hand.

 

She laughed at that, her deep, rich laugh that he liked in spite of himself.

 

“Liar,” she teased. “You don’t believe in God. But I will trust your word nonetheless.”

 

“You will write to me?” he said as he raised her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss to her fingers. “You will tell me how it goes in Valence?”

 

“Every week,” she promised, her lips parting in a lovely smile. She was beautiful and, more importantly, intelligent. He had no qualms about leaving his newly-acquired estates in her hands. He wondered if he would miss her, as he stepped back and offered her a low bow.

 

There were tears at the corners of her eyes when he stood upright again, but he did his best not to notice them.

 

 

**

 

Lucrezia had thought she would sleep late that morning. The banquet the night before, part of the tail end of the king’s wedding celebrations, had continued well into the early hours of the morning, and she had stayed up later perhaps than her condition should allow. The king was always in a better mood when he was in his cups, though, and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

 

She was very tired when she awoke to the tolling of the bells. It took a while for her eyes to focus and her mind to interpret the room around her. The pale light pouring through her windows signaled that the morning was still fresh and young. She had slept a few hours at most.

 

The King of Naples’ words of the evening before floated into her mind again.

 

“A toast!” he had cried, raising his goblet. “To the fruit of my little nephew’s marriage!”

 

Her hands went at once to her abdomen, to where only the slightest protuberance indicated the new life growing inside her. As her hands brushed against one another, she felt her ring there, and she began to fiddle with it idly.

 

She’d decided not to do it. After carefully crafting the entire plan with Micheletto, after weighing all the pros and cons, when it had come to the moment of truth, she had decided not to do it. Ferdinand may bear no love for her family or for herself, but neither Raphael nor Frederigo seemed any safer an option. And at least Ferdinand was still bound by the treaty he had made with her father.

 

The drug had been right there in the ring on her hand, but she had kept it to herself.

 

The bells outside continued to toll, not their usual announcement of the hour, but a frantic, high-pitched clanging that was beginning to make her head ache.

 

They’d all drunk the toast, sat back down in their seats. She had been on the verge of seeking out her assassin’s eye, signaling him to call it off, when she had heard a slurred whisper from her right hand side. She had turned to see the king, seated there beside her, leaning towards her, his eyes gone slightly unfocused from the effects of too much wine.

 

“And once we welcome this new addition to our family, I expect all other fruit to be forgotten.”

 

An angry retort had sprung at once to her lips, but she had bitten it back, replacing it with a bitter smile instead.

 

“You underestimate a mother’s love, Your Majesty,” she’d murmured. “More wine?”

 

The door to her chambers burst open then, and Alfonso dashed through, running to her and dropping to the floor beside her bed. The skin of his face had gone unusually pale beneath the sheen of sweat that covered it.

 

“The king,” he panted, grasping her hand as she sat up to get a better look at him. “My uncle…he’s been found dead.”

 

She allowed her eyes to open wide.

 

“Assassination?” she asked, her voice sounding reasonably breathless.

 

He shook his head, his pupils nothing but tiny pinpricks in the full sunlight of her room.

 

“The cause is yet unknown. His wife—“ Alfonso paused, his face contracting with pain. She saw his throat convulse as he swallowed. “His wife woke to find him cold in the bed beside her.”

 

“How utterly dreadful,” Lucrezia breathed, her heart inside her racing as Alfonso’s head dropped onto the hand that he held and she felt warm drops of water dripping down onto her skin.

 

Poison would have been too obvious, she and Micheletto had both realized. She would have fallen under suspicion almost at once. But a drug that merely put people to sleep… Her part had been to administer the drug to the king and his young bride, by way of their wine goblets. Micheletto’s had been to treat the guards’ drinks likewise. A little experimentation had allowed Lucrezia to develop a version of the drug that could be administered even in water without the victim much noticing a change in the taste.

 

And in the early hours of the morning, as the household rested from its nighttime revelries, a very quiet and very competent assassin had stolen past the sleeping guards outside the king’s bedchamber, slipped inside, and smothered the king with a pillow as he lay in bed beside his unwitting bride.

 

The guards had been given a minor dose. They would have slept for no more than an hour, waking almost unaware that they had even dozed off.

 

“My uncle is dead,” Alfonso sobbed into her quilts, and she patted his head and made the same soothing sounds she made when Giovanni fussed.

 

“We must go to the chapel,” she told him presently, “and pray for his soul.”

 

Micheletto wouldn’t come to her for at least two days. They had arranged it that way. If everything went according to plan, no one would even suspect murder, much less look for a murderer, but it was best to be cautious in any case. In a few weeks, when the first shock of the king’s untimely death had passed, the pair of unwatchful guards would also pass, each in a sudden but entirely unremarkable way, and with them would die the story of how they had fallen asleep at their posts that night.

 

“Yes,” Alfonso was saying, raising his tear-stained face to her once more. “Yes, we must pray for him.”

 

_And pray for our own souls as well_ , she thought.

 

“Come,” she said, gazing down at him with warm sympathy. “Let us go to the chapel together.”

 

 

 

**

 

 

It was nearly evening when Cesare, weary from a day of riding hard south, pushed open the door that led into the Holy Father’s war room. Despite the exhaustion that clung to him as tenaciously as the dirt of travel, he squared his shoulders, raised his chin high, and strode through the doors with all the confidence of a man who had an answer for any question those inside might put to him.

 

Oh, and the astonishment in all their faces, the astonishment especially in his father’s face as he laid before him every hard-won prize of his months in France. It was delicious. It made him almost forget just how tired his body was.

 

“Out! Out, out, all of you!” His Holiness barked when the full force of Cesare’s revelations had finally struck him.

 

It was all Cesare could do not to laugh in the Holy Father’s face as, alone with him now, he attempted to give his son the dressing down he felt he deserved.

 

“Naples was the plan,” the Pope blustered, thrusting his fingers forcefully down toward the map spread out upon the table between them. “You were to marry Carlotta of Naples, secure the kingdom for our family, establish us safely there to create another stronghold against our enemies. And instead what do you bring me? A French army breathing down my neck, a French spy to install here in the Vatican, a wife whose lands are so distant from Rome that they might as well be at the bottom of the ocean—“

 

Cesare decided then that his father’s recriminations had gone on long enough.

 

“I bring you the destruction of the Sforza power once and for all.”

 

For a moment, the Holy Father was caught off guard, and that moment was all Cesare needed. 

 

“We start with Milan and the tyrant Ludovico Sforza,” he pressed, sweeping his own hand across the map, across the tiny pewter figures that represented Il Moro’s Milanese forces. “And then we take the fight to Caterina Sforza, to Imola and Forlì. We rid ourselves of the Sforza plague for good, and then…” He paused, his hand hovering over the map, casting its long shadow across the whole of the Romagna. He waited, for the light of understanding to dawn in his father’s eyes, waited, _hoped_ that at last he would see something else there too—respect maybe…maybe forgiveness.

 

The Pope turned away, showing his son nothing but his white-clad back.

 

“And what of Lucrezia?”

 

Cesare frowned.

 

“Once the Romagna is under our control, the French army—“

 

“—will turn to Naples, yes, I know,” his father snapped, turning around again with his brows drawn together in a forbidding expression. “But I meant right now. Your sister is in Naples now, under the power of a king who has shown himself interested in alliance with Caterina Sforza. Do you think her position there will remain secure once you make your play against Milan?”

 

For the first time in months, Cesare felt a cold trickle of fear snake its way down the center of his body.

 

_Lucrezia._ He hadn’t unwittingly put her danger, had he? No, he had foreseen this, he’d put a safeguard in place.

 

“My man Micheletto is—“

 

“—but one man,” his father cut him off. “What can he do when Ferdinand commands the entire city?”

 

Cesare bit his tongue. He had an answer to that question, but it wasn’t one that he liked.

 

_Damn_.

 

“I’ll ride south at once. I’ll bring Lucrezia back to the safety of Rome.”

 

His father observed him with a cold stare.

 

“See that you do.”

 

 

**

 

It was late, very late, and Ascanio could only hope that it wasn’t _too_ late.

 

Rodrigo had kept them in consistory for so long, well into the night, well past the time Ascanio’s spies had seen the Pope’s son leaving Rome, flanked by a small personal guard and no one else, through one of the southern gates. The bells would ring for Matins soon.

 

Pulling the door of his chambers shut behind him, he hastened over to his desk, setting down his single candle with a too-loud clunk of metal on wood, and groped for quill and paper. 

 

“South, not north,” he mumbled to himself as he scribbled out the hasty note, in code of course, just in case it fell into the wrong hands. 

 

If Cesare Borgia rode south and not north to Milan… Was Naples his destination? It made little sense, not with an entire French army amassed in the north, waiting only for Cesare to lead it like a hoard of starving locusts down upon his cousin’s city. It made little sense unless the pope’s son thought along the same lines that he had, thought of his sister in Naples, alone in what was on the verge of becoming enemy territory.

 

He cursed softly under his breath. Had he been betrayed?

 

Cesare would need to be watched, followed if they could manage it. They needed to know when he would strike. When would the hammer that hung poised above Milan begin its agonizing descent?

 

With trembling hands, he rolled the scrap of paper and tied it closed with a length of ribbon. His cousin must see this message. Now. As soon as possible.


End file.
